Over time, I've grown out of that, and have learned to appreciate learning a language simply for the sake of learning it. Playing with Erlang and Lisp and C makes you a better Rubyist. Sub any other languages for those 4.
So my advice? Pick one. Any one will do. Spend a week hacking in it. Read a little, but don't read too much without actually using the language. Write some programs that solve a very small itch, or do something fun like simulating a swarm of bees or creating two bots that battle to the death. Play, and then after a week or two, play with something else.
I think new programmers sometimes worry about learning a language that will be financially viable, or will help them get a job. I know I did. I also know I'm worse off for that belief. I would have been better served, both personally and professionally, if I'd just played more.
DIP: http://www.diveintopython.org/toc/index.html
Tutorial: http://docs.python.org/tut/tut.html
Std Modules: http://docs.python.org/modindex.html
Std Library Reference: http://docs.python.org/lib/lib.html
good luck
Good luck.
I have also acquired the book "ANSI Common Lisp by Paul Graham", which is a classic and no-nonsense book. I personally find Paul Graham's approach quite refreshing.
Having seen Ruby being employed in various environments, I've also started to learn Ruby. It's a multi-paradigm and dynamic language and hope to use it in a RoR application development. It kind of forces you to think dynamically and that helps you to write more efficient code, I guess.
So far, I couldn't find enough time for either Java or Python.
And oh, lastly I must say: C++ with templates (STL) is quite indispensable. If you master C++ with all its features like STL, you'll find that it can handle a whole lot of things quite elegantly.
