I’ve long believed that the more spoken languages you learn, the easier it is to pick up new ones. I recently extended that belief to include computer languages, as well.

In addition to the languages I worked with many years ago, I recently completed introductory courses in C, Python, Java, C#, PHP, Javascript, SQL, C++, HTML, and CSS. While there are significant differences between C and HTML, for example, my theory nevertheless holds up.

Concepts introduced in one language, while not existing in every other language, are consistent in other languages when they do, in fact, exist. Variables are variables are variables. Classes are classes are classes. They may look quite different, but the concept is immediately familiar, not at all foreign.

I am not stating that expertise is easy to come by. Not at all. I’m just stating that you don’t need to re-learn the concept of boolean values from language to language; case-sensitive or not, conceptually, you still find the same true/false options.

Consequently, especially with introductory courses, you should be able to skip through entire sections. In fact, I completed most of these in less than one day. I wasn’t taking notes, because I don’t intend to use most of these languages, but your real notetaking should be limited to anything that is actually new and exciting.

For example, most of my study of Python has been about its libraries. Using a Quantum Machine Learning course as an example, there are lots of lectures, lots of science, and lots of math… but, very little Python. That’s the power of its libraries.

That stated, the concept of libraries, or whatever name they want to go by, is not unique to Python. If you are already familiar with the concept, you can dive right into learning what libraries are available and how to use them. In other words, adoption of a new language is accelerated.

I’ll even go back to my C versus HTML comparison. One requires code to be enclosed in curly braces, the other requires content to be enclosed by tags. Okay, that’s stretching my argument considerably, but, nevertheless, understanding the difference between closing braces and closing tags doesn’t exactly require university attendance.

I encourage everyone to learn new languages, whether programming or spoken. You never know when you might find one that you want to explore further.