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What's stopping you learning a new programming language?

Survey period: 11 Jun 2012 to 18 Jun 2012

Learning a new language is a great way to become a better programmer, but a lot of us make excuses. What's yours? Or are you already a polyglot programmer?

OptionVotes% 
Nothing - I already know more than 3 programming languages.39137.67391 votes, 37.67%
Not enough time (either at work or in my spare time)35033.72350 votes, 33.72%
Not enough incentive. 1039.92103 votes, 9.92%
I simply haven't seen another language I want to learn959.1595 votes, 9.15%
Simply no desire to learn another language.514.9151 votes, 4.91%
Other343.2834 votes, 3.28%

View optional text answers (50 answers)


 
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GeneralAn experienced developer knows any progamming language they want to know.memberSimon Bridge17 Jun '12 - 16:50 
Programming goes beyond language and syntax.
 
Anyone who can program say, C#, VB and SQL should know enough to pick up almost any other language out there in a couple of hours.
 
Anyone who has written C# should be able to pick up JAVA almost immediately, and vice-versa - in fact most C based languages should fall in very quickly.
 
Anyone who knows VB, also automatically knows most flavours of BASIC, and the VB derivations (VB6.0, VBA, VB Script, VB.NET etc)
 
I prefer not to define programming knowledge by the number of programming languages known, but rather the various types and specialties of languages, such as RAD, managed, object-oriented, scripting, query (eg PL/SQL, SQL), markup, procedural, mathematical/functional (eg F#), graphical (eg HLSL, OpenGL, LOGO) etc.
 
Obviously to consider yourself a master at a particular language you need experience with it's specific peculiarities (eg, users of C# will probably trip up on pointers, macros and headers if they move to C++) but the broader part of any programming knowledge and experience transcends language and syntax.
 
Also, I agree that while you might put XML and HTML down on your CV, they are markup languages, not programming languages (any logic implemented by a HTML page is written in VBS or Java Script)
 
You could probably draw a long bow and consider XSL a type of programming language as it has conditional statements, iterators and flow control, but you couldn't build a mail client with it or use it to organize your cd collection.
QuestionSome people seem confused on the definition of a programming languagememberenhzflep17 Jun '12 - 11:40 
How is it that we have so many 'developers' claiming to know HTML, XML (amongst others) as programming languages?
 
Neither of these is anything of the sort!
 
Perhaps some folk would benefit from closely (re?)reading this[^]
GeneralI already know three, but I chose "haven't seen another language"memberxawari15 Jun '12 - 1:43 
I already know three, but I'd rather answer "I simply haven't seen another language I want to learn".
Because 95% of languages other than C[++] are totally useless crap.
 
in another thousand years we'll be machines or gods█
GeneralNot enough time IS an excuse!!memberAlexCode13 Jun '12 - 21:41 
In some point in life you'll see that there're more important things to do! D'Oh! | :doh:
 
There's life before and after work specially if you have friends, wife, kids, ...
I used to spend a lot more time in front of a screen than I spend today.
It's just not good for our health in general.
 
Not that long ago human beings were chasing animals with bows and arrows, riding horses and partying around without fancy cars or houses to pay for.
Evolution takes millions of years, not thousands.
Our body isn't shaped to be seated 18 or 20 hours a day.
We need to exercise.
 
Our eyes aren't prepared to spend that same amount of hours staring at something 50 cm (or less) in front to us.
 
I don't even want to talk about sleeping amount of hours and specially the period of the day you sleep Smile | :)
It's very different to your brain to sleep during the night than being in front of a computer all night and then go to sleep a couple of hours... Smile | :)
 
This list goes on and on...
 
Don't get me wrong, I've done this, a lot, and I still do sometimes, but now I really care about these things.
 
So whenever I have to spend extra time in front of a computer it really must worth it.
My body and the ones that I care about thank me a lot! Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:
Generalonly 3?!memberembix13 Jun '12 - 21:06 
When you started (like I did) with a C64 you usually know BASIC and 6510 Assembler. At school we had Turbo Pascal. During my apprenticeship as skilled worker in electronics we used 8085 Assembler and TP again. Doing Perl then was my own Idea. When studying CS I used C++, Java, C, SQL. I should have learned haskell, matlab and x86 Ass as well, but I don't remember much about that. First contact with .net happened when working for two years for the chair of automatition (porting from VBS to VB.net).
 
Now I earn my money with C#, SQL and a bit of javascript. My co-worker have a likewise education, so I think most professional developers are fluent in at least 5 languages.
 
Learning new languages is exciting (I'm throgh the ruby chapter of 7 languages in 7 weeks) and you learn about new concepts. They open your mind, even if you don't get fluent in those languages.
GeneralWhy Don't You Run Faster?protectorAspDotNetDev13 Jun '12 - 13:00 
There are limits to the utility of doing anything better if you are already great. To ask why somebody doesn't do more of something presumes that it would be significantly beneficial, which it may not be.
 
I personally have a working knowledge of: JavaScript, C#, VB.NET, VB6, C++, XSLT, HTML, XAML, LINQ, QuickBasic, SQL, Regular Expressions, and ASP.NET (Web Forms and MVC). I know more than enough, and will learn more as required.
 
Rather than spend my time learning yet another programming language, I am currently spending my free time: exercising, watching Lost, working on a personal project, and learning French. Spending several years of my life learning as much about programming as I could was very fruitful, but now I know enough that I want to spend most of my free time doing other things.
 
Sometimes you need to stop running, and just enjoy the scenery. Smile | :)

GeneralRe: Why Don't You Run Faster?memberPhoton_13 Jun '12 - 19:52 
Disco Disco
GeneralRe: Why Don't You Run Faster?protectorAspDotNetDev13 Jun '12 - 20:11 
What? Confused | :confused:

GeneralRe: Why Don't You Run Faster?memberPhoton_15 Jun '12 - 22:29 
Oinal agai narskpe Cry | :(( Sleepy | :zzz: Roll eyes | :rolleyes: Mad | :mad: OMG | :OMG:
GeneralWhy anothermemberMinion no. 513 Jun '12 - 3:21 
when there is plenty to learn about the languages I already use?

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