Ever since getting out of college (06) I have primarily worked with java and some members of the J2ee stack. I've played around with some groovy scripts while trying to get something together at work (nothing big).
I'm tired of doing the same old crap and want to learn something new but every time I sit and look at things to learn...I get overloaded with information. from c# to python..ruby to groovy and 10's of frameworks. where should a guy start?
And If I pick one, I dont want to just pick a book and read page to page while typing code proved in the book. So should I plan out my little project first? Are there any de facto projects that one can try to implement while learning a new language. These projects would try to cover all aspects to the related domain (web/standalone).
what did you do when you learned your second language?
You might take a look at CodeKata and see if it's what you're after. They're not really very big projects, but they're good practice.
I usually try to write a Sudoku Solver as my first "real" project in a new language. Once I can do that, I feel pretty confident that I have the basics of the language under control.