[iainmerrick]

Agreed -- writing toy programs generally doesn't teach you a whole lot about a new programming language. To learn it in a deep way you need to use it properly, on real problems.

Although, if you're mainly interested in getting something done rather than using it as a learning experience, using an unfamiliar language is probably a bad idea. You'll learn a lot about a new language, but you probably won't build anything you could actually ship.