[test-it]

I feel sorry you lack basic understanding of linguistics. Any major programming platform today is too complex for a single individual to understand completely. One can spend his time learning several languages (and the platform they run on) or concentrate on a single language. I'd say it's obvious the second choice leads to higher productivity.

You don't see professional musicians trying to play 10 different instruments on world level. Or olympic athletes competing in 10 disciplines. Or lawyer practising 10 domains. But some programmers like to pretend they have 10 languages in their "linguistic toolbox".

[zhemao]

> You don't see professional musicians trying to play 10 different instruments on world level.

Yeah, but a violinist wanting to learn how to play the piano doesn't try to rub the keys with a bow. If you are a Javascript Web Developer, picking up a microcontroller is already going pretty far out of your domain. You might as well learn how to use the tools that were already suited for that task.

[marssaxman]

It is not obvious to me; in fact I would argue the opposite. Each new language generally has an interesting new idea or two, and learning a new language can expand your conceptual toolbox even if you never write enough code in it to consider yourself a master.

I don't know how I'd count the languages I've used so far, but it is certainly more than ten. I'm not fluent in all of them, but almost every one has taught me something. For the most extreme example, I still can't even read Haskell code, and I've never written a lick of it, but in reading about Haskell I picked up some ideas which have had a profound influence on the way I write code in other languages.

One of the reasons I am not a fan of Javascript is that I didn't learn anything from it. All of its bits were obviously cribbed together in haste from other languages. This is no slight on Brendan Eich, who was given something like two weeks to design it, but it's a shame that the most widely used programming language of all time has to be such a mess.

[cenhyperion]

>You don't see professional musicians trying to play 10 different instruments on world level.

That's funny because most of the full time musicians I know can play 3-6 instruments really really well. Kind of like how most of the full time programmers I know can program in multiple languages really well.

[pjmlp]

All the professional musicians I know master more than one instrument, even if they show up with just one of them.