This is a list of practical tasks that I learn in any language. Each point builds more or less on top of the previous ones.

• write a unittest
• read a configuration file
• parse command line arguments
• pass arguments to different functions
• logging
• write to a database
• run concurrent processes
• monitoring of a server process
• reporting/alerting
• create a GUI
• create a web interface
• create a REST interface
• create an installer/deployable app

There are quite some posts out there that compare programming languages to something else, like religions, rock bands, types of women … There is a compilation of these over at Lambda the Ultimate.

One comparison that I find missing is that of programming languages to music genres (maybe the “Subcultures” post was simmilar, but it seems to be a dead link now). This is the more surprising since it looks like developers tend to argue about their favourite languages just like most people about music: everyone knows it is a highly subjective preference, but no-one escapes trying to convince others that they are not listening to the “right” music!

So, here is my (completely subjective) view on programming languages as music genres: