Overall, I agree. Nut I disagree with the second half of the statement: "You don't need to hire an expert in language X, you can and should look for expert pr

Overall, I agree. Nut I disagree with the second half of the statement: "You don't need to hire an expert in language X, you can and should look for expert programmers that are willing to learn language X. An expert can easily cross over from being a novice in any language in a matter of a few weeks." The first half of the sentence is right on, but I'm not sure about the second half. Based on personal experience, it takes me a while to use a new programming language well. Of course, I wouldn't really call myself an expert programmer just yet. This is partly because I majored in Math and didn't get quite as much exposure to different programming languages as I should have (I just did all my homework in C++). But it's also partly because I actually bought the line about how a good programmer can move from one language to another easily, and figured I'd be able to pick up new languages quickly. An excellent C++, Scheme, Perl, and Javascript hacker will learn Ruby as quickly as it takes to memorize the syntax. A genuinely smart Java hacker (who is learning there's more to this whole language thing than he first realized) will learn how to write while loops in Ruby very quickly, but it'll take a while before he/she instantly realizes when to use blocks and yield.