[ryao]

The curiosity of learning is infeasible given that there are >15,000 programming languages. You might say to only learn the major/influential languages, but I have found my curiosity to wane with every additional language that I learn. So far, I have either used or dabbled in C, C++, FORTRAN, SML/NJ, PHP, Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, POSIX Shell, Assembly and SQL stored procedures. That is not to mention different dialects/versions of those, and the fact that assembly itself is a catch all category in which I have dabbled in multiple languages too. I am also not including languages for which I spent a minuscule amount of time (say a few hours), such as D (as in DTrace), Objective-C, Perl, COBOL and LISP. Then there is the misadventure into C# I took before I actually understood programming where I got stuck and dropped it. I am also not sure if I should mention AWK, as I only use it to select the Nth field in a bunch of lines of text when doing shell scripting and nothing else. Thus, I have used it many times, yet know almost none of its syntax.

Every few years, someone tells me I should learn another language, and in recent years, there just is no desire in my mind to want to learn yet another language that is merely another way of doing something that I already can do elsewhere and the only way I will is if I am forced (that is how I used Go).

That said, I do see what you are saying. C++ for example has an “support every paradigm” philosophy, so whenever someone who has learned C++ encounters a language using a paradigm that C++ assimilated, there is a huge temptation to try to view it through the lens of C++. I also can see the other side too: “C++ took me forever to learn. Why go through that again when I can use C++ as a shortcut to understand something else?”. C++ is essentially the Borg of programming languages.

[1718627440]

How do you got proficient in so many languages? I think it takes some years, before you start to think in a language.

[johnisgood]

I did not know they say the same thing about programming languages.

Based on his comment, I did not think that he is proficient in them, but that he has used them, which is fair enough, so have I, sans all the ones tied to either Apple (Swift) or Microsoft (C#).

I have some projects in Haskell just for curiosity's sake, and because what I wanted seemed like it would be nice in Haskell, and it indeed looks quite elegant to me, for this one particular project. Haskell is not a language I would use generally. OCaml is.

[ryao]

You are correct. I am only highly proficient in a few of them. The others are ones that I have used for varying sized projects for varying reasons, but I only learned the subsets I needed for my purposes. I would say my ability in the others in my main list varies within the low to intermediate range of proficiency.

[johnisgood]

Yeah, same here. This Haskell project is nothing serious, it just prints you the difference in time between two dates. I thought the Haskell implementation would look nice and it did. I initially made it in bash but I realized this is much more complex than what bash can handle. I had to calculate for particular calendars among a lot of other things. I think it works, more or less, however.

[ryao]

My proficiency in them varies. I have used them for projects, such that I can write code in them (provided I have references to read), but when I do, I only learn/use the subset of the language that I need. If I want to read code others have written, then I need to know the subset that they used and that is not always the subset that I know. Most of them are languages that I have used for a handful of projects or in the case of assembly, for very small portions of projects, with at least half of that spend just trying to understand how good of a job the compiler did in critical loops.

There are some languages in which I am extremely proficient. My best language is C, which is my favorite and I have used most features of every version of C from C89 to C11. My second best is probably either C++ or POSIX shell (although I have moments where I forget certain syntax and need to look it up, especially in POSIX shell for variants on variable substitution, e.g. ${VAR%%foobar}). I have used most features of C++98 and some from newer versions. My experiences with C++ have soured me on it, so I now try to avoid C++ whenever I can in favor of C and Python.

My first language was actually PHP 4.2.y, and I was fairly proficient in it, having spent a long time learning it while simultaneously writing my own code for a website as a teenager. However, I never once touched the portions describing objects/classes, namespaces or exceptions. Someone else at work writes Modern PHP code using Symfony and I have taken a peek at it. It looks very different from the PHP I knew because it uses the features I had avoided learning (and probably some new language features too), although I can sort of read it thanks to having learned those concepts in other languages.

I used SML/NJ and Java in college. Years after college, I modified an open source Android TV application written in Java to add some things I wanted, although honestly, beyond that I have not really touched either language. Give me an arbitrary application written in either to improve and I would have some difficulty, although I will probably be able to do it after filling the gaps in my understanding (and doing plenty of head banging if it is a large program).

I have used JavaScript for a few recent projects via electron/nodejs and I have done several small things in Python over the past several years. Each time, I only worked with the subset that I need. I am far from a master of either language that can understand arbitrary code written in them, but I am able to manage as far as my specific needs are concerned.

I could continue listing my experiences doing things in languages (like the time in college that I wrote some basic programs in FORTRAN 90 to try to learn it), but they really are not that interesting. It was often a project here or a small application there, and as I readily admitted, I only used a subset of most of the languages. For programming, a subset of commonly used bits is often all you need.