4 ms·

when I see programmers who know so many languages, I feel like I have no chance and I dont bother to apply, but thankfully I have a lot of ideas of my own.I hop

by id122015 10y ago

when I see programmers who know so many languages, I feel like I have no chance and I dont bother to apply, but thankfully I have a lot of ideas of my own.I hope you will accept a worthy offer, because not many employers can understand beside languages how long it takes to learn all the other technologies.

gregmac 10y ago
Don't be discouraged by this: Actually knowing many programming languages in itself is not something more employers are looking for. The skill is being able to learn a new language/framework, and if you have some experience building something in 3 or 4 languages (even if you're not necessarily an 'expert'), that's a pretty good indicator you can learn a new one. In general, people with more experience have more languages, and no one expects a junior programmer to know 10 languages. Being able to become proficient in a new language or framework is a learned skill, which you can practice on your own by just trying to write something in a new language or framework. And the best part, by doing this, you increase the number of languages you know.
- cosinetau 10y ago
  That's the reason why I've listed so many: I try to challenge myself to learn something quickly. The other reason is my mathematics background. For instance, I'm not very strong in Haskell, but I can do a thing or two in it and move forward in -thinking- in the functional paradigm. At present, I think I could manage writing "production grade" code in a handful of those languages, and have only spent a non-trivial amount of time in C++, PHP and JavaScript. Testing is also a weak area of mine. Take that for what you will.
AMcQuarrie 10y ago
I've done paid work in C#, C, C++, Objective-C, Python, Java, Javascript, x86 Assembly, a variety of flavors of SQL, Silverlight, Actionscript, Go, Node... Probably other things off the top of my head. The thing is, I'm only really good at C# and C++. Most of the above languages use similar paradigms and just have some different syntax. The skill I actually want when I hire people is willingness to work on something they don't understand really well and get better at it. It takes a long ass time to get to very high levels of proficiency (where you understand all the underlying details of how memory works and the odd little bits about the compiler/interpreter/runtime) and I DON'T operate at that level with most of the languages I "know". Many jobs don't actually require you to use windbg to track down issues in the .NET garbage collector. Situations like that are also highly varied and it's not something you can 'train' for, you just have to cultivate the skill of constant discovery.
- cosinetau 10y ago
  This is predominantly the reason why I've spent as much time in a lot of diverse languages, in particular the ones I listed. Sure, many of them are the same C/C++ family, both a lot of them aren't, and I tried not to repeat the ones that were isomorphic to something else. To that end, I learned Haskell well enough to be able to "think functionally" and applied that to what I already knew about JavaScript, Python, etc. But I didn't go out of my way to learn Scala, even though I want to. I learned MySQL and MongoDB because I needed them to complete projects, but didn't make the leap to PostgreSQL or Couch because I could just pick them up later, if it ever even came up. I think the point is, know how to do a lot of things, but don't get locked down into doing it only one way.
cosinetau 10y ago
I've been passed up more times than I've been given a chance. Several of my colleagues from school that have less experience than I already have jobs, and I'm just sitting around looking for work still and waiting for my teaching contract to come back. Please, please, please don't be discouraged. Please, please, please keep on truckin'.
kabdib 10y ago
Well, do they know the language, or have they just written a little code in it? I don't think I really know a language until I've spent a couple of years in it, and written something significant in it (rather than just doing maintenance and tweaks in an existing code base). This works in your favor: You read that resume and perceive someone who looks like a coding star. As someone who reads a lot of s/w engineering resumes, I see someone who's potentially making strong claims that they can't back up. Or worse, someone who thinks they're better than they are. At that point you read the rest of the resume for evidence to back up the claims; if someone claims expertise in a horde of languages and they've only actually worked in a few, that's interesting data. I used to put LISP and a bunch of different variants of Pascal and assembly languages on my resume, until I realized that nobody really cared. Just claim what you know well. Don't worry about looking good.
- cosinetau 10y ago
  I guess that would put me at really only knowing PHP and C++, and even still that C++ claim is pretty dubious knowing my own history, sparsely spread out over a long period of time. I don't feel like a coding star, really, I'm just a petty mathematician whose really excited to engineer stuff. In my defense, I have learned (through attrition) that one tool will not make all solutions so, when presented with the opportunity I take the time to learn something new. But, for the record, I think knowing several variants of assembly is wicked cool. Thank you kindly for putting your thoughts forward, I will take them serious thought.
- burfog 10y ago
  I really care. Go for it: post contact info and how well you know assembly. What CPUs? What modes? (16-bit, 64-bit, etc.) Plain, FPU, privileged, vector...? What can you do? (writing assembly files, writing inline assembly, reading one of those, doing disassembly, using IDA Pro, etc.) Could you emulate a CPU? Could you JIT, and if so, from what to what?

gregmac 10y ago

Don't be discouraged by this: Actually knowing many programming languages in itself is not something more employers are looking for. The skill is being able to learn a new language/framework, and if you have some experience building something in 3 or 4 languages (even if you're not necessarily an 'expert'), that's a pretty good indicator you can learn a new one. In general, people with more experience have more languages, and no one expects a junior programmer to know 10 languages. Being able to become proficient in a new language or framework is a learned skill, which you can practice on your own by just trying to write something in a new language or framework. And the best part, by doing this, you increase the number of languages you know.

cosinetau 10y ago
That's the reason why I've listed so many: I try to challenge myself to learn something quickly. The other reason is my mathematics background. For instance, I'm not very strong in Haskell, but I can do a thing or two in it and move forward in -thinking- in the functional paradigm. At present, I think I could manage writing "production grade" code in a handful of those languages, and have only spent a non-trivial amount of time in C++, PHP and JavaScript. Testing is also a weak area of mine. Take that for what you will.

AMcQuarrie 10y ago

I've done paid work in C#, C, C++, Objective-C, Python, Java, Javascript, x86 Assembly, a variety of flavors of SQL, Silverlight, Actionscript, Go, Node... Probably other things off the top of my head. The thing is, I'm only really good at C# and C++. Most of the above languages use similar paradigms and just have some different syntax. The skill I actually want when I hire people is willingness to work on something they don't understand really well and get better at it. It takes a long ass time to get to very high levels of proficiency (where you understand all the underlying details of how memory works and the odd little bits about the compiler/interpreter/runtime) and I DON'T operate at that level with most of the languages I "know". Many jobs don't actually require you to use windbg to track down issues in the .NET garbage collector. Situations like that are also highly varied and it's not something you can 'train' for, you just have to cultivate the skill of constant discovery.

cosinetau 10y ago
This is predominantly the reason why I've spent as much time in a lot of diverse languages, in particular the ones I listed. Sure, many of them are the same C/C++ family, both a lot of them aren't, and I tried not to repeat the ones that were isomorphic to something else. To that end, I learned Haskell well enough to be able to "think functionally" and applied that to what I already knew about JavaScript, Python, etc. But I didn't go out of my way to learn Scala, even though I want to. I learned MySQL and MongoDB because I needed them to complete projects, but didn't make the leap to PostgreSQL or Couch because I could just pick them up later, if it ever even came up. I think the point is, know how to do a lot of things, but don't get locked down into doing it only one way.

cosinetau 10y ago

I've been passed up more times than I've been given a chance. Several of my colleagues from school that have less experience than I already have jobs, and I'm just sitting around looking for work still and waiting for my teaching contract to come back. Please, please, please don't be discouraged. Please, please, please keep on truckin'.

kabdib 10y ago

Well, do they know the language, or have they just written a little code in it? I don't think I really know a language until I've spent a couple of years in it, and written something significant in it (rather than just doing maintenance and tweaks in an existing code base). This works in your favor: You read that resume and perceive someone who looks like a coding star. As someone who reads a lot of s/w engineering resumes, I see someone who's potentially making strong claims that they can't back up. Or worse, someone who thinks they're better than they are. At that point you read the rest of the resume for evidence to back up the claims; if someone claims expertise in a horde of languages and they've only actually worked in a few, that's interesting data. I used to put LISP and a bunch of different variants of Pascal and assembly languages on my resume, until I realized that nobody really cared. Just claim what you know well. Don't worry about looking good.

cosinetau 10y ago
I guess that would put me at really only knowing PHP and C++, and even still that C++ claim is pretty dubious knowing my own history, sparsely spread out over a long period of time. I don't feel like a coding star, really, I'm just a petty mathematician whose really excited to engineer stuff. In my defense, I have learned (through attrition) that one tool will not make all solutions so, when presented with the opportunity I take the time to learn something new. But, for the record, I think knowing several variants of assembly is wicked cool. Thank you kindly for putting your thoughts forward, I will take them serious thought.
burfog 10y ago
I really care. Go for it: post contact info and how well you know assembly. What CPUs? What modes? (16-bit, 64-bit, etc.) Plain, FPU, privileged, vector...? What can you do? (writing assembly files, writing inline assembly, reading one of those, doing disassembly, using IDA Pro, etc.) Could you emulate a CPU? Could you JIT, and if so, from what to what?