I’ve signed up to write a book for the Pragmatic Press called Seven Languages in Seven Weeks. The languages are set now. They are:
- Ruby
- Io
- Scala
- Erlang
- Clojure
- Haskell
- Prolog
With this list, I did the following:
- I wanted at least 3 paradigms. (There are 4).
- I wanted to take one comfortable language to get people in tune with the style. I push Ruby all of the way into the metaprogramming space in one chapter.
- I pushed hard to work at least 4 functional languages into the mix. (Scala is more of a hybrid, but it will make for a gentle introduction.)
- I wanted at least one prototype language. I didn’t want to do JavaScript because I really wanted to get to the core of what Prototype programming really is in a single chapter, and Io does a pretty good job of that with minimal syntax.
- I included Prolog to introduce yet another paradigm that will stretch some readers.
I’m finishing up the first pass through the Io language chapter as we speak. It’s been a real mind bender for me, and the community is great.
I’d have to say that of the rest, I’m most excited about Erlang, and a little nervous about Haskell. It’s going to be hard to do it justice in a chapter.