I've been interested in programming languages for a long time now, and it's been good for me. I've learned a lot of new ideas, broadened my horizons. However, I've noticed I don't seem to write much software for myself anymore, only what I'm paid to write at work. Whenever I spend my own time on computers, it's always reading some academic paper or book, never actually writing programs. I used to write software on my own time, for fun. I enjoyed that, and I think I'd like to do some more of it. The problem is, after you've been exposed to so many languages, how do you pick one and really dig into it?

After thinking about it for some time, I've decided to settle down and focus all my spare computing time on a single language: Haskell. I'm not saying it's the end-all-be-all of languages; it's got some warts. It's hard to find good documentation, though that's getting better. It's hard to do dynamic things - reflection, plugins, etc., though that's getting better, too. The thing is, I've noticed that the code I write in Haskell is usually more elegant than the code I write in other languages, and since this is my time, I can choose what's important. Crisp, elegant code is important to me.

So I'm going to give it a go. It doesn't mean I won't be keeping an eye on a dozen or so of my other interesting languages, but from a distance - as a spectator. It does mean I'm going to start writing code again, and that feels good.