| Shocked? Really? While I'm certainly stronger in one language I'd say it's quite normal to use at least 3 programming languages daily. As a Unix guy it's even more. If I just want to write a Python hello world I need to know some Python, some Bash, some Vimscript, some Terminal I/O. Many of my projects also have Makefiles, additional bash scripts (which includes SED and AWK besides Bash). Interaction with databases, APIs, JSON or XML or INI configs, HTML, etc is also common. And let's not forget that most systems that have grown over the years have a few DSLs to interact with their tools. So before I finish my first coffee I've probably used 6 languages already on a typical work day. I think most coders in my company are fluent in at least 10 programming (&related) languages. And while our software development team is certainly better than my last gig I still hope it's not the top of what software dev teams can be. And your most prevalent point is that company enforces some language usage. It's often not the same if you switch. So if you have more than 5 years you probably can increase the typical programming language fluency about 50%. Also your example about switching stacks. Your first stack had .Net, C#, SQL, JS and JQuery. Now you at least sometimes also use Java, and whatever Bootstrap/Angular require. |
I got fed up with this state of affairs a few years ago and stopped looking for .Net or Java developers and started looking for self-described hackers, assuming that would increase the odds that they had some passion for programming and could/would/had pick up whatever tools they needed for the job. It has worked well.
As an aside, though, especially in countries like India, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Bulgaria, Poland, and others which are low cost recipients of outsourcing dollars, "software factories" are common, and in places like this it absolutely is common for an individual programmer to literally spend their time all day, every day doing the same one type of thing. Imho, the higher the CMMI number, the worse this gets (the pinnacle is the "just write a function to pass this test. No, it doesn't matter what it's doing or what this software is for. Just pass the test.", where developers on the front line are plug & play cogs who don't even know what they're working on).