What do you do to learning a new programming language?

[zridling]

Bob Sutor states in this post on how he set about learning a new programming language:

When I actively coded from around 1973 to 1999, I loved writing text editors. I didn’t write them to toss out any commercial market leader like SlickEdit or CodeWright, I did it to learn new programming languages and to experiment with data structures. I really love text editors and sometimes it takes a lot of personal strength to not start whipping one up in these days of bigger editing systems like Eclipse and much more modest ones like GEdit.... (emphasis mine)
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Is there a project you use to learn a new language, or do you just dive right in? I'm curious.

[mouser]

in my early days (1980s), if i had access to a new computer, the first thing i would do is sit down and code a clone of asteroids or lunar lander .

[zridling]

I had a friend who programmed Rube Goldberg device games in various ways, using blocks of text, shapes, and other odd things. It was easy to tell which languages he liked, as they were greater in complexity with his favorite ones.

[mouser]

i always love simple games as a good way to start learning a language..

if you want to try learning a new language, head on over to our "self-teaching programming school" section of the forum, where there is a ladder of self-teaching assignments for over a dozen languages, and you can get started learning today.