[luckydude]

I agree that any decent programmer can pick up a new language pretty quickly.

However, I think that it's not really about the language, it's more about the libraries. Knowing all the utility functions that exist and how to use them is based on experience, you don't pick that up overnight.

tl;dr: bright inexperienced people pick up the language quickly and then rewrite library functions that already exist.

[gizmo686]

But experience in one language should give you a good idea on what library functions should exist (unless you are crossing paradigms). At this point, you can just search (or ask a co-worker) how do I do X in <new language>, and go on your way.