Broadening Programming

I've decided that I want to broaden my abilities in terms of languages I know. After looking at some stats on the webs I've picked what languages I want to learn: C/C++, Python, Java, Small Talk, Ada, and Ruby. This is a wide range of languages and language types. Small talk has as its influnced list [Lisp, Simula, Logo, Sketchpad]. Where as Java and Python are heavily influenced by C/C++. Ada has a Python influence I can see. And Ruby has all of them as an influence and I know it gets a fair bit of use (Ruby on Rails).

So those are the languages I want to learn. The biggest difficulty with learning a programming language is just finding something to do and knowing when you've done it right. I've just started a repository called "LittleLibs" which are a collection of libraries that I'm using to help me learn how to create these systems, and probably provide me with useful libraries I can use later on. If I want to be fluent in these languages I might find these libraries useful later on.

Fluent. I'm going to define fluent here as using a programming language idiomatically. Programing Ada like an Ada programmer not like a Python programmer.

This is also touching in on how I plan on doing unit testing. I personally don't believe that internal consistency unit tests make sense. An internal consistency unit test dictates how a library should work. That isn't want matters! What matters is that the library should be correct, how it works underneath shouldn't matter. If done right then, even the programming language underneath shouldn't matter.

What I'm imagining is I'll have a library, then a simple test interface to that library. The test interface is just to overcome the language complications of trying to get something to use the library. The test interface loads all of its data from a file to check for library correct ness. In this way, each language will have its own test interface to its own library. However, the information tested against is common amoungst all the libraries. Thus, either they are all right, or they are either all wrong.

This way I can develop libraries that are useful for these languages and I can develop useful libraries that I can use with these languages later.

So, what do I need to focus what I need to learn about these languages. These are the main things I have come up with that I need to focus on when working with these languages.

I've already started working with python on my first project, a collision detection library, which also happens to include various lower level math libraries that will be of great value to me later. a linearAlgebra library, a Geometry library, and a boundingVolume library. These have lots of potential use for collision/physics engines, as well as graphics systems such as OpenGL but also such as Ray Tracers.

I'm considering adding mixal to the list, if for no other reason than to pay homage to Donald Knuth.