[flopsey]

As a new programmer I'd say there's an aspect that you're ignoring. The need to take reasonable steps, and to know if not your limitations at least where you stand.

You want to take the next step that has enough familiar aspects that you can acclimate reasonably quickly and build non-trivial programs (the fun part) in a reasonable amount of time. But also different enough that you're exposed to new concepts and new ways of thinking about programming, and also to have access to a more powerful language.

Simply diving head first into a powerful but completely foreign language might not be the best way. Coding can be as frustrating as it is rewarding. And there's something to be said for trying to maximize the rewards and minimizing the frustrations.

[chongli]

What better way to know your limitations than to seriously challenge yourself? I taught my friend to program in Haskell and while he struggled early on he found it incredibly rewarding. Since then he's found it extremely easy to learn other programming languages, despite their extensive differences from Haskell.

There's also a lot to be said for habit-forming. Imperative languages teach you a lot of habits and cause you to develop assumptions that might actually make it harder to learn a language as different as Haskell. This makes the concept of "taking steps" in your growth as a programmer a nonlinear one. Some languages might even hurt your ability in the long run.