Everything in the world that has been created is based on the world view perceived by the creator excluding those which portray universal truth like fundamental science(fundamental chemistry and physics). And more often than not understanding deeply a product in a category is a gateway to the inner workings of the creators who are working under the same shed.

I can attest to this notion in the field of programming languages. All those single and multi-threaded, functional and object oriented, static and dynamic language comparisons are not the best use of my time. Rather than trying to keep the foot on all these language boats, it is wise to learn one deeply, understand what the author is trying to convey which in turn helps me to understand or appreciate other languages. This advice was given to me by my senior but eventually, I had fallen prey to shiny object syndrome and it really sabotaged my progress.

Not long go, I tried to learn Rust, Golang, flutter, and god knows what not. But I stumbled across a talk by DHH where he emphasized the programmer’s happiness. I really love python to the core because of the simple abstraction it provides. The main reason for this unconditional love is Jeremy Howard. That guy literally blew my brain with his exquisite simplistic thinking. Jeremy is the epitome of first principles thinking even when he shits.

In awe of DHH and rails developer happiness, I decided to try ruby and rails. When I started learning ruby I scoffed at the idea of learning for loops and conditional statements. It’s because those things portray the same meaning across different languages and they don’t mean dog shit. Python is preferred to java for prototyping as you don’t have to create those shitty classes for every line of code you write. Hence I stopped learning ruby the traditional way and started lurking around the interpreter and firing up my editor.

This way I will be able to understand what a new language has to offer rather than me trying every shiny feature it has to offer. Even a small deviation can cause anxiety to become your dear friend.