This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Brian McCallister. Original Post: Go Learn $language NOW! Feed Title: Waste of Time Feed URL: http://kasparov.skife.org/blog/index.rss Feed Description: A simple waste of time and weblog experiment Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Brian McCallister Latest Posts From Waste of Time

Most people who read my blog are java programmers, I think. If you are, and you didn't migrate to Java from another tribe in order to find a job, go learn another language, start right now. Pick a category and pick one, or pick one from each =)

Languages which will make it hurt to use Java again

• Ruby
• Python

Languages which will make you smarter and are even useful

• Scheme
• Haskell
• Smalltalk

Language from which Java's replacement will get its ideas

• Objective Caml

Languages if you don't want to stray too far from Java

• Groovy
• Nice
• Jython

Most elegant language first implemented on the JVM (which seems to borrow a lot of ideas from ocaml ;-)

• Scala

Thank you to Bill de hOra and Tim Bray for prompting me to say this now rather than later =) Java is a nice language, but it is far from the end of the world. It is well suited for what it was designed for, taking C++ programmers a step closer to Lisp, and building really big systems with really big teams of $programmerish_titles. That isn't most development, it is simply the most expensive.