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>The notion that we need to all program in the top 10 popular programming languages seems dead with the advent of LLMs. It was dead prior to this. A subset of

>The notion that we need to all program in the top 10 popular programming languages seems dead with the advent of LLMs. It was dead prior to this. A subset of programmers think it's hard to program in any other language other than the one or two they studied. They are wrong. Most programming languages are very very similar. And learning one means you learned almost all. i learned new languages on the regular pre - llms and it required barely any effort. Most company interviews are also language agnostic for this reason. Because languages are so trivial to learn once you "get" how to program.

GoblinSlayer 1y ago
If those 10 languages were good, why there are 10 of them? Shouldn't they kill each other? In the end there will be only one.
- WJW 1y ago
  Why are there hundreds of food recipes in the world? Shouldn't the most delicious dish just kill all the others? In the end there will be only one dish and we will all eat only that.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  This is what human languages tried to do but then they discovered nukes and now they’re all at a stalemate.
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
> Most programming languages are very very similar. For the most part, yes. I'd add the caveat of needing to differentiate significantly between imperative and functional programming, though. I've used Python, Java, C, C++, C#, PHP, and a TINY bit of Perl (Enough to know it's a terrible language -- seriously, why would anybody want to use a language that people refer to as "write-only" because it's so hard to read?), and Haskell just makes no damn sense to me. It seems its only use is to show off how Quicksort can be written in two lines with it, or to start fights over whatever the hell a Monad is. Also, if you've only ever written in memory-safe languages like Python, Java, and C#, then switching to an unsafe language like C or C++ will probably result in writing a ton of memory leaks, buffer overflows, and segfaults.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  You only say that about Haskell because you don’t understand it. Once you understand i, your world view will change.
  - elcritch 1y ago
    Technically you didn’t specify if your world view will improve or devolve. ;)
    - ninetyninenine 1y ago
      It depends on if you prefer the red pill or the blue pill.
brookst 1y ago
It’s like human language: your second one is hard, your fifth one is easy.

GoblinSlayer 1y ago

If those 10 languages were good, why there are 10 of them? Shouldn't they kill each other? In the end there will be only one.

WJW 1y ago
Why are there hundreds of food recipes in the world? Shouldn't the most delicious dish just kill all the others? In the end there will be only one dish and we will all eat only that.
ninetyninenine 1y ago
This is what human languages tried to do but then they discovered nukes and now they’re all at a stalemate.

Sohcahtoa82 1y ago

> Most programming languages are very very similar. For the most part, yes. I'd add the caveat of needing to differentiate significantly between imperative and functional programming, though. I've used Python, Java, C, C++, C#, PHP, and a TINY bit of Perl (Enough to know it's a terrible language -- seriously, why would anybody want to use a language that people refer to as "write-only" because it's so hard to read?), and Haskell just makes no damn sense to me. It seems its only use is to show off how Quicksort can be written in two lines with it, or to start fights over whatever the hell a Monad is. Also, if you've only ever written in memory-safe languages like Python, Java, and C#, then switching to an unsafe language like C or C++ will probably result in writing a ton of memory leaks, buffer overflows, and segfaults.

ninetyninenine 1y ago
You only say that about Haskell because you don’t understand it. Once you understand i, your world view will change.
- elcritch 1y ago
  Technically you didn’t specify if your world view will improve or devolve. ;)
  - ninetyninenine 1y ago
    It depends on if you prefer the red pill or the blue pill.

brookst 1y ago

It’s like human language: your second one is hard, your fifth one is easy.