Do you think that choosing a non-mainstream language is really the result of some sort of counter-culture vibe? Some desire to be different? Not necessarily, b

Do you think that choosing a non-mainstream language is really the result of some sort of counter-culture vibe? Some desire to be different? Not necessarily, but often so. More specifically, I think it used to signal someone who was more enthusiastic, passionate, engaged -- but now people will use them because they think it signals these things. And I don't think its intentional. But I think a lot like college radio, you see the guy who is leading the crew of outsiders and you see what he listens to. You see a lot of people who are signaling what resonates with you and follow that. It's odd that C++ is one of the most denigrated languages on the planet -- yet it really does seem like the people I know who most write C++ code still are a lot more hardcore than those I know who do Clojure (and its odd that I may know more people that do Clojure than C++). To put it another way the people doing the less mainstream languages are often putting themselves in the middle of it... "look at me -- look at the language I'm using". People doing C++ are saying, "look at my code -- look at my app".