They're not contradictory at all. People who present themselves as PHP developers tend to have a set of common differences from people who present themselves as

They're not contradictory at all. People who present themselves as PHP developers tend to have a set of common differences from people who present themselves as Ruby or Python developers. That doesn't mean that the competent among both groups are incapable of quickly switching languages. It might mean that the percentage of competent developers is different between the two groups. It's basically the Dead Sea Effect[1], but with languages. Generally better developers will want to use better languages. That shouldn't be surprising. Hopefully we don't have to rehash the argument about the fact that some languages are better than others, since we're on HN and pg has covered that point in great depth. [1] http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...