Seven Languages in Seven Weeks
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks by Bruce A. Tate
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book offers an exploration of various programming paradigms (object oriented, prototype, constraint-logic, and functional), concurrency models (actors, futures, and transactional memory), and programming constructs (list compression, monads, and matching). None of the topics are covered in great detail but for those curious what Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, and Haskell are all about, this book does a reasonable job of introducing and demonstrating each language. The writing is uneven between the chapters and some concepts (like monads and monitors) could use much better code examples. As the introduction emphasizes, to really get the most put of the book, you will want to work through the exercises at the end of each day, as that is the best way to get a feel for each language. Be warned there aren't answers to these problems, despite what the introduction alludes to.
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