Learn a new dynamic or functional language every year

Specially for folks using the C* languages (C/C++/C#) and Java it's very important to learn dynamic/functional languages.

There are three reasons.

1. With time we will see more and more high level dynamic languages and at the same time many languages like C# will take up dynamic/functional language attributes and hence it's good to be prepared
2. It'll give a fresh perspective to do the mundane day to day coding. Lambda's in C# won't look alien any more :)
3. It's fun and will help you survive going through gazillion bulleted lists like this ..

I think the fun part is the most important.

``I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.''

Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990)