Hi, I was wondering which language to learn next, i know c++ very well, i've taken a full year course on Java and know it pretty well. I learned assembly not long ago, and it gave me a completely different view of the programming world, i'm not gonna say im really good in it, but i understand how to read it and wrote a couple of i/o apps with it. Which language should I learn next? I want to know something useful, I've though about C# and I have a pretty fat "Professional C#" book, but It looks very similar to Java and C++ combined, so It just gets boring re-reading the same stuff. Which languages can help me if I'm planning to persue game dev? Maybe BASIC? Any suggestions/opinions welcomed, thanks.

Well, firstly you might re-evaluate whether you actually know C++ all that well. I've been programming in general for 13 years now, C for roughly 5 years and C++ for 4 and I have little illusion that I know all there is to know about C++. Besides, there is a ton to know about it even outside the syntax itself: patterns and general methodologies, caveats, etc...

That said, if you're looking for something that will change your fundamental view of programming I would look into a functional language like Haskell or the other Lambda-calculus-based languages. There are basically 3 major paradigms in programming: Object-Oriented, Procedural and Functional. C/C++, various BASICs, Java, C# and most popular languages are of the OO/Procedural variety -- they share essentially the same (or very similar) mindset, and are basically syntactic and feature-set differences. Functional languages are very much a different mindset altogether.

Some of the distinguishing features of functional languages include: Functions which are much closer in structure to mathematical functions and often defined in mathematical or math-like terms. Purely functional languages (Haskell) use functions which have no side-effects -- functions are specified solely by passed-in arguments and its effects are conveyed strictly by its direct output. Functions are also first-order data types (can be passed as parameters) and recursion is often fairly prominent in defining functions.

@Antheus & ravyne2001 , thanks i like the idea of being able to express functions as mathematical terms, that would make the algorithm creation much easier to understand.

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Well, firstly you might re-evaluate whether you actually know C++ all that well. I've been programming in general for 13 years now, C for roughly 5 years and C++ for 4 and I have little illusion that I know all there is to know about C++. Besides, there is a ton to know about it even outside the syntax itself: patterns and general methodologies, caveats, etc...

Yea thats true, I'm trying to go beyond just knowing the syntax, but I feel pretty comfortable with techniques behind it too. I'm obviously lacking professional experience, but I'm trying to improve, i used to believe books like Code Complete are pretty boring since they have little physical code, but now that i'm actually involved in a project its become invaluable.

So it seems like it's Lisp vs Haskell, on Wikip. it says that Lisp is used for AI programming which sounds pretty cool, but Haskell like you guys said is purely functional, which one of these is used more?

EDIT: btw is python worth anything? or functional langs are more important?

I would say SQL would most likely give you the most complimentary skills as you can use it with all of the languages you already know.