Seven More Languages in Seven Weeks: Languages That Are Shaping the Future

This book is for advanced programmers looking to expand their horizons and learn new languages. The assumptions is you are already a polygot programmer who is familiar with a variety of domains.For example, on the chapter about Elixir the author assumes you already familiar with Erlang and how it works. I first learned about Erlang from the first Seven in Seven Languages book, but not enough to be fluent. Because of this, it was a bit hard to follow for me.On the other hand, the chapter on Julia was right on the mark for me. I am familiar with scientific programming in Python, so I was able to compare the concepts much easier here and it was illuminating to learn some of the differences. I would have liked to see some more evidence to the claims that Julia is fast. It was mentioned repeatedly but no data to show.The chapter on miniKanren was also really interesting to me. I was not very familiar with the term "logic programming" and I got a few ideas for research.Each chapter has an interview with the author of the language. This was the best of book, but I did not understand why the interviews were so short (1-2 pages). It was fascinating to hear how the authors of the languages decided to create a new language. In many cases the language creator was unsatisfied with current technologies and starting by rolling their own solution.Overall, this was another solid entry in the Seven in Seven series. A few chapters felt rushed though, and it was often difficult to keep up with the authors who are seasoned experts.

Seven More Languages in Seven Weeks (SLSW2) is a great book to get exposure to new languages (obviously). The languages covered are: Lua, Factor, Elm, Elixer, Julia, miniKaren, and Idris. However, the content on each language is not exactly masterful. I often got the feeling I was reading a print version of someones blog. Although, I did really appreciate the interviews with the authors and occasionally their views on why the language could be important.If you want to learn Lua you can skip SLSW2 and go straight for Roberto Lerusalimschy's Programming in Lua. Also, if you're looking for a lightning introduction to Julia, check out the tutorial by Learn X in Y. It is pretty clear that neither Jack nor Bruce are Matlab programers ;)Finally, the book does indeed accomplish its primary goal of getting folks (me at least) excited about programing languages. Languages like Factor and miniKaren are pretty wild and a lot of fun to mess around with if for no other reason than to simply work the "wetware". And for that I give it 5 stars. Looking forward to SLSW3.

This the first time ever I resorted to Amazon Trade-in program... and I'm a heavy Amazon user: hundreds of books (could be low thousands, I'm afraid to think about it) over the years. (So now you know why Jeff Bezos is a billionaire.)Both the selection of languages and their handling seemed to be much less convincing this time around. I have the distinct feeling of being milked for money, riding on the good reviews of the original one.I was expecting more "mind-expanding" languages, but instead got warmed-up left-overs, of the rather hybrid current crop of languages. Not that all the languages presented were uninteresting, there just wasn't... anything that made me go "hmmm" or "aha!" in there. (Some background: I'm IT professional since the nineties, so I've seen and tried a few languages.)Two stars for the effort and reasonable technical quality, but if it were just for the crushing disappointment, it would be one star.

Got it as described, in timely manner. Thanks.

A must to have, along with its older brotherSeven Languages in Seven Weeks: Languages in Seven Weeks

First, this book is not for beginners looking for a survey of languages and then choosing among them. The authors write about common but advanced topics relating to languages, such as what prototyping is, general typing, lazy evaluation, lifting, dependent typing, functional reactive programming, and more. If I were starting out programming, I would likely be confused by the firehose of concepts coming at me via seven different languages.However, if the reader has some experience in one language, the book can be quite mind-expanding. The book not only introduces new computer science-y concepts, it also teaches you a language that is engineered to leverage those concepts, and that is fun. For example, if you are a Javascript programmer, and are frustrated by "callback hell", you will come to appreciate that Elm was designed to address that particular problem by implementing "functional reactive programming", and learn a few functional programming concepts along the way. My favorite was actually from the first book, where the logical language Prolog, which just looks alien, had a coded solution for Sudoko puzzles in just about a dozen lines. Each chapter has a small project that they use the language to solve.I liked the book for the most part, for the reasons just given. It’s a great way to get exposed to different concepts and problem-solving approaches, as to what motivates the very smart people to make the effort to make such languages. As the book says, even if you go back to your original language, at least you have been exposed to approaches and concepts that might find their way into your current coding, or even just thinking.The one criticism I have, and this applies to the first book as well, is that some of the points seem to be unnecessarily belabored, and other parts in which I’d like more time and explanation are skeletal and rushed through. That can be a bit frustrating, but Google is there to rescue you.Again, I recommend this book to at least intermediate programmers. It will get your toes wet in a lot of current and important concepts, and hopefully broaden your mind and approach within your current language of choice.

Bought as a gift. Recipient happy.

It could serve as an eye opener for the language fanboys and an interesting read for the polyglots as well.

Der Vorgänger "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" gilt als Klassiker und das neuere "Seven Languages in Seven more Weeks" steht dem nichts nach. Bis auf Lua werden sechs heute eher unbekanntere Sprachen vorgestellt und deren Stärke und Konzepte heraus gearbeitet.Wer sich für Programmierung und Programmiersprachen interessiert, der braucht dieses Buch.