[kaffeinecoma]

I like to build something that I've programmed before in another language. Maybe this seems redundant. But if you have the problem fresh in your mind, it leads to asking the kinds of (Googleable) questions that get you very quickly to a base-level understanding of the new language. It also sheds light on the areas where the language is better/worse at specific things than the lang you are used to working with.

[rprospero]

I used to use this method, but I've started to back away from it, because I often find that it encourages my own Blub programmer nature. Re-implementing an old project immediately shows me the ways in which the new language is worse, but often obscures the benefits.

As a personally embarrassing example, I once returned to Python after three years of heavy Scheme usage. I spent a week porting an almost trivial application and it felt like Python was fighting me every step of the way. Had I not had past pleasant practice with Python, I would have abandoned the language as useless.

Finally, at the end of the week. I realised that I was trying to write Scheme in Python, which work about as well as writing Python in Scheme. Python has for loop and I should be using them.

About twenty minutes later, the app was ported. It wasn't my finest hour.

[blacksmythe]

I sometimes see the opposite.

    We took an app written and maintained for the last 10 years in language A, and re-wrote it from scratch in language B.

    The new codebase is smaller, more maintainable, and runs faster!!!