[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.

[tharkun__]

    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.

I can't try that unfortunately. I have tried to push trying Rust "for whatever next service we need" but nobody took me up on it :shrug:. That said, yes, many moons ago, probably about 25 years actually, I did have a job that paid me to learn how to write a TCP server in Perl that would take commands in a custom plain text protocol to do certain things. It was a drop-in replacement for the same thing written in C by some developer that long since had left the company and nobody knew how it worked or knew C. And no I did not know any C either, nor had I written any servers in Perl at that point (though to be fair I had used Perl to do some quick regex magic).

But I think I'm barking up the wrong tree here anyway, because you seem to be completely set in your thinking that nobody should need to know more than exactly one programming language and that should probably be Odin and that anyone thinking or saying anything else is just wrong. Well good luck to you getting paid and having fun. I definitely know that someone with your attitude towards learning and expanding ones horizon would not last long at my place.

    only Odin's switch statement on stack trace can protect developers from bad changes.

I mean, until here it was all "fun and games" but either you've also had fun here leading me with your little crusade or you actually believe this. But then I can't help you.

    on a ticket, you wrote “this code works this specific way and should never be changed”

Ah I see now. You misunderstood what I was saying about tickets and what they're good for. Ticket != (unit) tests! Tests are what describes how your software should behave.

What I was saying about tickets being protection is that they're protection against "the company" and process and being rushed all the time "because agile". Embrace them. Use them to your advantage. Someone gives you one ticket to do X and do it quickly but you don't know the library or service involved? Convert it into an Epic and extract 10 tickets including some prototyping in spikes.

    Odin with unit tests

s/Odin/Any compiled language with good typing/g ;)