[paganel]

> you have to break out of that paradigm.

That's why I never regretted trying to learn Common Lisp some time ago, even though I didn't ship anything into production, and why I really do enjoy doing the same thing with Erlang right now, i.e. trying to understand it and getting as comfortable with it as I can get (and preferably this time maybe putting something out there).

Both these experiences helped me see programming differently, a change of "paradigm" as you very well put it, so now even when I get back to Python or PHP I feel like I'm a better programmer. Plus, there's something to be said about the fact that always trying to learn new and interesting stuff and not only focusing on "shipping code" is what keeps one's passion at higher levels. After almost 10 years in this trade I've found that passion at what you're doing is a very valuable and in the same time very volatile resource.