<story><title>Learn X in Y minutes</title><url>http://learnxinyminutes.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ljk</author><text>has anyone succeeded learning a language with technique like this? this feels like more of a reference for someone who knows the language already....</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>klibertp</author><text>Yeah, it&amp;#x27;s easy: once you know a dozen languages or so the quick reference like this one is all you really need to learn most languages, at least to the point of comfortably writing everyday code. I say &amp;quot;most&amp;quot; languages, because this kind of reference doesn&amp;#x27;t work for languages based on completely different semantics than the languages you know: APL and J are the primary examples for me (EDIT: also, Forth. But not Factor or Cat or Joy... dunno why exactly).&lt;p&gt;Anyway, this is great for polyglot programmers, who would be bored to tears by &amp;quot;beginners guide&amp;quot; to just about any language and who know enough about how programming languages work. It&amp;#x27;s probably of very little help to programmers who know only a very few languages and&amp;#x2F;or for those who didn&amp;#x27;t study programming language design, though.&lt;p&gt;In my case I successfully used this site (and some other resources, as well) to get up to speed with Haxe, Nim, LiveScript and Lua, but then again, learning new languages is something I do all the time (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;klibert.pl&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;programming_langs.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;klibert.pl&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;programming_langs.html&lt;/a&gt;) for years now, so I may not be the best example :)</text></comment>
<story><title>Learn X in Y minutes</title><url>http://learnxinyminutes.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ljk</author><text>has anyone succeeded learning a language with technique like this? this feels like more of a reference for someone who knows the language already....</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mdcox</author><text>To pick up the basics of a language similar to one you already know? Sure.  I used this site to write something in Nim just a few days ago.&lt;p&gt;Do I know the conventions or idioms? No. Do I know the advanced features of Nim? I sincerely doubt it.  But I know Python, and seeing the syntax written out is enough for me to correct my informed guesses in how to write it.&lt;p&gt;I doubt I could use it to pick up Haskell or a language whose paradigm I was unfamiliar with though.</text></comment>