>> Is it worth learning > Languages are easy to pick up once you understand fundamentals. The borrow checker is intuitive if you have an understanding of stack

>> Is it worth learning > Languages are easy to pick up once you understand fundamentals. The borrow checker is intuitive if you have an understanding of stack frames, heap/data segment, references, moved types, shared memory. I see this sentiment often. In the last 10 years, I have come up a level in raw C, learned Kotlin, Swift, Python, Elixir/Erlang, and a smattering of JavaScript, all coming from a background that included Fortran and Smalltalk. My problem with the dialogue is what is meant by “learn.” I have architected, implemented, and maintain different components of our products in all these languages currently. I think that demonstrates I have “learned” these languages, at least at this level of “picked up.” But I can’t write Python the way Brett Canon does. Or Elixir the way Jose Valium does. Or any of their peers. And in that regard I still very much feel I have not “learned”. I spent a couple days playing with Zig a month or so ago. I became familiar with the way it worked. I could spend another month or so in that phase, and then could probably comfortably accomplish things with it. But I don’t think I’d feel like I’d “learned” it. It reminds me of my experience learning Norwegian. I lived in Norway for 2 years and did my best to speak as much Norwegian as I could. At six months I could definitely get by. At 13 months, as I embraced the northern dialect, I was beginning to surprise Norwegians that I was from the states. I started dreaming in Norwegian at some point after that. But even at 24 months, able to carry on a fluid conversation, I realized I still could “learn” the language better than I currently knew it. So I guess, it always seems there needs to be more context, from both the asker and the answerer, when this “should I learn X” discussion is had. Learning is not a merit badge.