The newsroom developer team, of which I am a former member, is using Scala for one of its new systems. So last night curiosity got the best of me — I don’t remember the precise reason — and I started reading a tutorial (the site is currently down; cached version here).
Then tonight I explored AngularJS after reading about one recent use for a collaborative writing system. That article also led me to read about Scala’s Play framework:
Although my day-to-day work doesn’t usually involve writing code anymore (or, if it does, it’s usually updating previously-built Django apps), my fascination with programming and coding concepts continues.
In this case, I’d previously heard of both Scala and AngularJS and briefly glanced at the latter’s site. But I didn’t know why exactly they were useful and how they’re distinguished from other tools. Now I do and that knowledge will help in my role as a project manager, teacher, presenter or if I roll up my sleeves and start a new code project for work.
Overall, just a good reminder to stay fresh and be aware of what tools are out there and what they do.
Bonus: While we’re at it, this little lesson reminds of a nugget from a 2010 post I wrote about computational thinking:
Learning different programming languages: On the bus back from Philly, I listened to a tech podcast on which Kevlin Henney, author of 97 Things Every Programmer Should know, asserted that programmers should learn other languages to inform and improve how they write their primary language. …
And why is that post fresh in my mind? Because of this:
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