[djoes]

I've been taking the Programming Languages course on Coursera, the motivation for the course is exactly what you're talking about. "Syntax doesn't matter" has become something of a catchphrase in the lectures, emphasis is always on semantics and how different languages accomplish the same/similar things.

https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang

[Nick_C]

Snap, me too. It's a great course run by Dan Grossman (who pops up on HN occasionally).

I signed up to learn functional programming and have learnt a lot.