This is a review of a book called “Seven Languages In Seven Weeks”, which I have started reading quite long time ago. Maybe I could have finished it in seven weeks, if I only was reading it chapter by chapter and not in between of other books.

I have found couple of very interesting feedbacks on this book, some of them even criticizing. Bad critics mostly were about languages selection, concentration on very simple stuff in Days 1 and 2 and jumping to cool stuff only in Day 3, also many complained about some important features missed.

I guess such kind of opinions come from people who either have tons of experience or either are complainers by their nature. Either way, though I agree that the book is not giving solid picture about each of the languages, I don’t think it was its purpose! As per me intension of the book was to introduce readers to interesting programming concepts represented in those 7 languages and encourage to actually code something in each of them. Author says “If you simply read this book, you’ll experience the flavor of the syntax and no more.” and it is complete truth. I know it because, for instance, I skipped coding in Erlang thinking that I will do it in the end, but it didn’t work that smooth.

I tried to have blog posts on each of the languages, but I didn’t strictly follow home works, as some guys did. For example, Ben Nadel has posts for each of “days”.

Here are my posts on each of the languages from the book:

• Haskell
• Scala
• Erlang
• Clojure
• Io
• Prolog
• Ruby

Some of posts are not part of the book’s reading process. BTW, list sorted by how much each of languages appeal to me.

Do I recommend this book?

I have answer up-front, copied from my comment to similar question. Here you go: “… it always depends on your needs. If you are interested to quickly go through couple of interesting languages I would recommend this book. Though book is not always easy to follow. Also when you read always do home work. If you want deep insight into one-two languages or comprehensive explanations or step-by-step samples this book is not your choice.” I still keep the same attitude about recommending it, but if someone expects a short answer, than it is going to be – YES.