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> it is not easy for a Senior to switch languages and just pick it up. This surprises me. I have 15 years of experience in the field, and it was many years ago

> it is not easy for a Senior to switch languages and just pick it up. This surprises me. I have 15 years of experience in the field, and it was many years ago when I got my degree in computer science. Back in the day, they thought me algorithms and what not using pseudocode (!)... nowadays I can easily pick up any tool (programming language, framework) in, I don't know, a month? Of course I won't be the best developer out there with 1 month only, but pretty much I can be productive. Sure, if one is switching from, let's say Python to Haskell, then the learning curve is higher than if you switch from Python to Ruby or JavaScript. Still, it still amazes me seeing some developers call themselves "PHP developer" or "Kubernetes architect".

scarface74 4y ago
Languages are easy, it’s the ecosystem, framework and best practices that take time. Any developer can pick up Java or Swift in a month. That doesn’t mean you could turn them lose and tell them to write a mobile app by themselves or lead a project doing so in a month. A “JavaScript developer” is useless as a front end developer if they don’t know the clusterf^# of the modern front end ecosystem I was a “C# developer” until 2020. That implies I knew the ecosystem, frameworks, corner cases, best practices, what could go wrong at scale if you used the different frameworks incorrectly etc. What I didn’t have to do - ever in the last 12 years of my career - is reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard while juggling bowling balls while riding a unicycle on a tightrope. I went into smaller companies and got hired based on my expertise. Even now, I didn’t have to go through the DS&A grind to get into BigTech where I code everyday because I was able to sell myself as an “enterprise developer who knew how to lead projects and talk to customers and I specialize in architecting solutions on their cloud platform”. Does it limit my optionality? Definitely. I’ll be working on that over the next couple of years.

scarface74 4y ago

Languages are easy, it’s the ecosystem, framework and best practices that take time. Any developer can pick up Java or Swift in a month. That doesn’t mean you could turn them lose and tell them to write a mobile app by themselves or lead a project doing so in a month. A “JavaScript developer” is useless as a front end developer if they don’t know the clusterf^# of the modern front end ecosystem I was a “C# developer” until 2020. That implies I knew the ecosystem, frameworks, corner cases, best practices, what could go wrong at scale if you used the different frameworks incorrectly etc. What I didn’t have to do - ever in the last 12 years of my career - is reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard while juggling bowling balls while riding a unicycle on a tightrope. I went into smaller companies and got hired based on my expertise. Even now, I didn’t have to go through the DS&A grind to get into BigTech where I code everyday because I was able to sell myself as an “enterprise developer who knew how to lead projects and talk to customers and I specialize in architecting solutions on their cloud platform”. Does it limit my optionality? Definitely. I’ll be working on that over the next couple of years.