TITLE: On Kazoos and Violins
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 21, 2010  4:45 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Coming out of
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-10.html#e2010-10-21T08_50_34.htm">
   Strange Loop</A>,
I have been reading more about Scala and Clojure, both of
which bring a lot of cool functional programming ideas to
the JVM world.  A lot of people have seem to have made
deeper inroads into FP via Scala than via Clojure.  That
is certainly true among the companies in my area.  That
is not too surprising.  Scala looks more like what they
are used to than Clojure.  It feels more comfortable.

This context is probably one of the reasons that I so
liked
<A HREF="http://blog.fogus.me/2010/08/03/take-5-brenton-ashworth/">
   this quote I read yesterday</A>
from Brenton Ashworth, a serial contributor to the Clojure
community:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
I'm now convinced that choosing a language based on how
easy it is to read or write is a very bad idea.  What if
we chose musical instruments based on how easy they are
to play?  Everyone would playing kazoos.  You can't think
deeply about music if all you know is a kazoo.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This reminds me of a story Alan Kay often tells about
violins.  I have alluded to it at least
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2008-01.html#e2008-01-03T15_25_09.htm">
   once before</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
And we always need to keep in mind the difference between
essential and gratuitous complexity.  I am often reminded
of Alan Kay's story about learning to play violin.  Of
course it's hard to learn.  But the payoff is huge.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

New tools often challenge us, because knowing them well
will <EM>change</EM> us.  And such change is a part of
progress.  Imagine if no one had wanted to learn to fly
an airplane because it was too different from driving a
car or a horse.

Don't get me wrong:  I am not comparing Scala to a
kazoo and Clojure to a violin!  I don't know either
language well enough to make grand pronouncements about
them, but my small bit of study tells me that both are
powerful, valuable languages, languages worth knowing.
I'm simply concerned that too many people opt out of
learning Clojure well because of how it looks.  As
Ashworth says in the sentence immediately following the
passage quoted above, "Skill at reading and writing code
is learned."

You can do it!
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-01.html#e2010-01-05T15_25_06.htm">
   Don't settle</A>
on something only because something else looks unfamiliar.
By taking the easier path in this moment, you may be making
your path harder in the long run.
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