> > My theory on this is that programmers don't know where they end and
> > the language begins. If you're doing something interesting and
> > challenging, the language won't matter. (Of course, I've been working
> > exclusively with Ruby almost from the moment I discovered it, so I
> > could just be completely full of BS there.)
> [snip]
>
> I have an entire lightning rant on that topic. I have a strong
> dislike for "Foo Developer" as a job title (Foo == Perl/Ruby/Lisp/
> whatever). It's limiting.
It's terribly limiting, especially since anybody who's learned more
than a couple languages knows that picking up any given language is
not really so hard.
Beware of mannerisms though, but on the big lines I agree with you.
Therefore somebody with a Java/Ada/Perl/Python/Ruby/Smalltalk/C
background (guess who) will have (actually has) a harder time to grasp
Caml/Erlang/Haskell
Also the hiring priorities of a lot of companies
tend to actually favor cultural inbreeding, in that five years of
Python is somehow considered better than a year of Python, a year of
Perl, a year of Ruby, a year of Smalltalk, and a year of Erlang.
I prepared the following +1 nicely, did I not 
+1
In
fact a resume like that could have some real value to it, depending
very much on what the programmer actually **did** in those languages
(even though what the programmer did is often seen as less significant
than the language the programmer used at the time -- which has to be
one of the most bass-ackwards things on the planet).
It is very true and very sad. However there is really not much I feel
can be done, it is a mirror of the society, Do we have time to think?
No we do not, period, anyway thinking is not good for you 
However, if your job title really was "Foo Developer," that would make
for an entertaining business card.
I will definitely ask for the knowledge of Foo(1) as a programming
language in the next job description I will file, this is a brilliant
idea.
--
Giles Bowkett
http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
http://giles.tumblr.com/
Cheers
Robert
(1) after checking and crosschecking that it really does not exist of course!
···
On 3/8/07, Giles Bowkett <gilesb@gmail.com> wrote:
--
We have not succeeded in answering all of our questions.
In fact, in some ways, we are more confused than ever.
But we feel we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.
-Anonymous
