There is a popular saying (especially amongst The Olds) that "you don't understand programming until you understand pointers." I found it to be the opposite: I didn't understand pointers until after I had been programming for years and then implemented my first, interpreted scripting language.
I think learning to write interpreters is one of those fundamental skills that everyone should learn at some point in their programming careers. Not because there's a good chance they'd create a popular language out of it (though who knows, I definitely think we could use some new ideas in PLT), but because it removes almost all of the "black magic" feel of programming.
You see arguments for days about "OOP vs FP" and other such faff. And once you've implemented OOP and implemented FP in your own language, it's all just... window dressing. It's all the same thing, just different ways of slicing it. There's nothing inherently evil about one or the other.
I think learning to write interpreters is one of those fundamental skills that everyone should learn at some point in their programming careers. Not because there's a good chance they'd create a popular language out of it (though who knows, I definitely think we could use some new ideas in PLT), but because it removes almost all of the "black magic" feel of programming.
You see arguments for days about "OOP vs FP" and other such faff. And once you've implemented OOP and implemented FP in your own language, it's all just... window dressing. It's all the same thing, just different ways of slicing it. There's nothing inherently evil about one or the other.