It isn't arbitrary at all. I think people should know a compiled language (procedural), a scripting language, a numerical computing language (w/ vectorized not

It isn't arbitrary at all. I think people should know a compiled language (procedural), a scripting language, a numerical computing language (w/ vectorized notation), and a functional language. I think its completely excessive for the average programmer to know Haskell AND Erlang AND Prolog AND Smalltalk. Do you think people should know all of those? I see advantages to learning each, but I think my list would take the average person a bit further.