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I was told by the PayPal founder/CTO that a good programmer can program in any language, and that they will learn as they go. So far I hired about 12 programmer

by cft 10y ago

I was told by the PayPal founder/CTO that a good programmer can program in any language, and that they will learn as they go. So far I hired about 12 programmers and this was verified empirically.

grovegames 10y ago
That's the very definition of anecdotal, but yes, any programmer worth their salt should be able to program in any language. Many programmers however, aren't.
- carapace 10y ago
  "Let's write it in FOO because BAR programmers are hard to find." "Why would you hire FOO programmers that felt they couldn't learn BAR?"
  - flukus 10y ago
    > "Why would you hire FOO programmers that felt they couldn't learn BAR?" Did they really feel they couldn't learn it or were there factors in them not wanting to learn it? What if I was worried about future job prospects after a few years of BAR development?
    - carapace 10y ago
      No hire. Personally, I'm pretty elitist when it comes to programming. I think about nine out of ten people who are being paid to write software today should be shown the door. Most of the industry is a scam (however inadvertent.) Now, in 2017, most folks software needs could be met by picking and configuring canned components from a library. There really isn't a lot of requirement for real programming. But we just keep going. Another JS framework. Another chat app. But I'm starting to rant now. I'm close the window and back away slowly. ;-)