RE: Modernizing applications

Agree 100% - staying fluent in many at once is extremely hard was my point. Learning a new one and dropping an existing one anyone should be able to do.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James H. H. Lampert
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 1:32 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Modernizing applications

Mike Cunningham wrote:

I can agree with the need to know multiple languages to some extent
but at some point there is not enough time in a day to keep fluent
with the number of languages you listed here, let alone all the
different IDEs and Frameworks you have to know in order to code in
them. As someone else mentioned earlier every application programmer
these days needs to know HTML, Javascript and CSS in addition to
other languages. I know people who do nothing but these three and
can't stay current with the changes or the new techniques that people
come up with. Add to that anything else (Java, PHP, RPG, C++, C#, VB,
CL, perl, REXX, Ruby, Python, and on and on and on) and you may be
able to say you can look at the code and know the basic syntax but
you there is no way you can really say your fluent in any more than
one or two. Don't forget to add in the many add-on libraries you can
get for just about any of these languages to help you code faster and
things like XML, SVG, Flash, Sliverlight multiple flavors of SQL
for each type of database that exists, and some basic understanding
of the OS your writing applications for. With all the other things
that are pushed onto me to know just to build web applications I find
it difficult to even stay current with one language, in my case RPG.

But having learned a large number of languages, (1) it's easy to learn
new ones, and (2) it's easy to regain fluency in those one hasn't used
in a while, even years.

--
JHHL