I value learning new languages, especially as I have yet to find a very good one. Some are pure and beautiful like Scheme, but if you asked me what single language I would take to a lonely island with me where I was stranded, it would still have to be C.

To those here who would like to have some guidance diving into other languages I can recommend these two books:

Bruce Tate: Seven Languages in Seven Weeks https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Pro...

Bruce Tate: Seven More Languages in Seven Weeks https://www.amazon.com/Seven-More-Languages-Weeks-Shaping/dp...

You can work through them in <4 months, and then we can talk again whether you found it useful (I did).

You might enjoy something along the lines of Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages. https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Pro...

> "experienced dev trying clojure for the first time"

You're looking for Seven Languages in Seven Weeks http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Prog...

Seven Databases in Seven Weeks: A Guide to Modern Databases and the NoSQL Movement http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Databases-Weeks-Modern-Movement/...

Not the kind of short cut book that it may lead you to think. The book is a brief introduction to modern database types and what are their characteristics, what are their use case, and why you should choose it over other database types.

Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages (Pragmatic Programmers) http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Prog...

Similar book as above, but introduces you to 7 different programming languages. The focus of the book is not on how to use each language, but to explore the different programming paradigms introduced by each programming language. (prototypical inheritance, functional programming, logic programming, object-oriented programming)

The most fun computer science related projects I've found are (1) learning new languages and (2) writing new languages.

For (1), I picked up the book Seven Languages in Seven Weeks[0] and learned to write (really basic) Ruby, Io, Erlang, Prolog, Scala, Clojure and Haskell. I didn't write anything great, but it was a lot of fun to play with new ideas.

For (2) I decided a couple of weeks ago to implement my own Lisp[1]. I know almost nothing about Lisp and so I'm making a lot of mistakes and re-inventing the wheel a lot, but having a language whose syntax or semantics is changeable on a whim is just so much fun. Want a syntax for function literals? You can add it. Always thought that hashmaps should be a special case of functions? You can add that too. I can't recommend this enough as a way to rekindle your interest in computer science. I'm going to work on the language in my spare time for a couple more weeks, and then try to write a compiler for it. I've never written a compiler before (I was a math major, not computer science). I have no idea how you do it. But I'm pretty certain it's going to be fun.

[0] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Pr...

[1]https://github.com/chris-taylor/Haskeme

Try the book, "Seven Languages in Seven Weeks" which covers Clojure, Scala and a bunch of other languages. I've only just got it and it looks good so far.

http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Languages-Weeks-Programming-Prog...