[rmanolis]

So you telling me that you don't need to study on your free time? Is that correct?

You can't program in any language, don't fool yourself. Take, for example, SQL that is used in all companies. Can you write SQL functions with the same ease as Java? You may ask why do you need functions in SQL? Because it is faster to run the algorithm in SQL, rather than in Java from an ORM.

[tharkun__]

I do not study in my free time, no.

I'm not saying I can instantly program at expert level in any language I've never heard of. But yes, I can read most programming languages even without ever having seen them. Take LUA. I had never used LUA and when I started out I was reading code examples and writing LUA code without first "learning" it at all. I just went and did it. Did I probably do some "stupid things" that an expert would do differently and/or fast? Of course. But I got stuff done and learned as I went along. Same when we introduced Kotlin for example. I was instantly productive but someone using Kotlin for a longer time (such as today's me) would "cringe" at how I was writing Kotlin as if it was Java.

Notable exceptions would be languages that have such a weird syntax as Brainfuck ;)

SQL is a great example. I have not been using SQL directly for quite a long time now. But about 20 years ago my bread and butter was SQL and I was writing stored procedures every single working day and I was not writing any Java at that point in time but was using two other languages other than SQL on a daily basis as well (Perl and Bash).

[rmanolis]

Look, you are very lucky for sticking with java and using your OOP knowledge to move to other programming languages.

But an unexpected change will come and you will need to go back studying on your free time. This is always happening in our industry, you were just lucky for not living it because you sticked with Java.

[tharkun__]

You are making assumptions there, even though in this very conversation you have evidence to the contrary.

In professional capacity over the years I have used Perl, PHP, Bash, SQL (various dialects), Java, Groovy, Kotlin, Scala, Javascript and Typescript. I did not move from Java and OOP knowledge to other programming languages. I started with with languages that don't (have to) use OOP. I still work with Typescript (and until recently Javascript) while also working with Java and Kotlin. And in Java and Kotlin there is very little traditional OOP going on.

I guess the point there is to always keep learning and evolving. I learned Kotlin at work, while doing it. I learned Typescript at work, while doing it. I learned about various libraries at work, while using them. Until a few years ago, I had never used React and I have never used React except at work.

[rmanolis]

What company gives you time to learn at work? where do you even live?

[tharkun__]

You did read the "while doing it" part, right?

Talk about it. Prolifically. Say that you have no problem working on "that thing" but that it's going to take more time, because you're unfamiliar with that language / library / service or whatever it is that would slow you down.

Then adjust your estimates. If you are working on something completely new that you know nothing about, put in "Spike" tickets to prototype things. Put larger estimates for the tasks themselves after for the "unknown unknowns". When you discover an unknown unknown that can be extracted as a new ticket from what you are currently working on, create a ticket for it to make that fact visible and adjust your current ticket to say it got extracted so nobody still expects your ticket to do it.

Tickets are not evil, tickets are protection for developers - create them and comment on them, explaining what is going on and what needs to be done. Most companies aren't really "evil" in that way. They just don't know better. If you do happen to be in one of the 'actually evil' ones, go find another company to work for. E.g. if developer are not allowed by process or actually prevented by the ticketing software from just creating tickets and moving things around as necessary: run. Don't walk. Run from that company.

[rmanolis]

The “while doing it” does not work if you don't have experience with similar language. If you don't believe me, try learning Rust while writing a server for your work.

Tickets are useless. Real tickets are unit tests that need to pass for the software to be ready for production.

Tickets cannot protect you, only Odin's switch statement on stack trace can protect developers from bad changes.

I will give you an example, you worked for a company and on a ticket, you wrote “this code works this specific way and should never be changed”. After 6 months, the company fires you and another senior developer takes your place. The new developer never read previous tickets because no one read old completed tickets, so no one will read the message you left, and they will change the code accidentally.

However, in Odin with unit tests and locking stack traces with switch statements, the code is really protected from these kinds of accidents.