Tips and Tricks When Learning Multiple Languages?

Posted by Cliff on Monday January 27, 2003 @10:30AM from the don't-get-too-overworked-about-it dept.

BoneFlower asks: "Due to early registrations scooping up most of the good electives at my school, I'm stuck with learning COBOL(required CS class at my school) and Visual Basic.NET (only useful CS elective left) at the same time. The only tips I've gotten from IRC are 'drop one' and 'Focus on COBOL only enough to pass, and put most of your effort on Visual Basic'. I'd prefer to learn both well, do any of you have any suggestions on how to do this? What aspects of each could I use to enhance the other, and what apparent similarities should I keep in mind as dangerous traps? I also have some C++ knowledge, up to basic classes and memory management, so any of that that I could use in the current classes would be useful as well."

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Try implementing the same programs in each by elliotj · 2003-01-27 10:40 · Score: 4, Informative

This is just an idea, I've never tried it: how about taking simple programs and trying to implement the exact same program in each langauge. Oh sure, VB and COBOL are very different and the interfaces will no doubt be different, but looking beyond that, trying out the same exercise in each language could teach you a lot about them both as you see how they are similar and different. Using a common problem domain will allow you to focus on the differences in structure and syntax. I'm not suggesting trying tough projects here, just simple exercises: memory management, arrays, search trees etc.