I think the article would be received more warmly if it were put into the perspective of a company project. I.e., don't implement this new product in XYZ just because I want to know/learn XYZ and it's all the rage right now. That would be a waste of time.
I'm a full-time Java programmer now because it pays the bills. But you'd better believe I'm learning other lanaguages on the side, because it's pretty clear that Java 1.) has some serious limitations that other languages don't have, and 2.) is falling out-of-favor as a web development tool to more flexible, less statically-typed, more functional languages.
It's not so much to "open my mind" as it is to keep myself marketable after Java's impending demise.
> It's not so much to "open my mind" as it is to keep myself marketable after Java's impending demise.
As someone who is starting to step out of the comfort zone of Java, I agree about marketability. However, Java is not going to disappear, it's firmly entrenched. It's like COBOL. I'm not sure how Sun pulled it off exactly but Java in it's 13 years has spread itself in a lot of corporate systems/applications/backends (some of which may be COBOL). Ruby on Rails and other minority languages are the minority in some companies precisely because the majority don't like the minority ("RoR? We don't use that"). However, there are some rogues in companies who are trying to bring RoR in discretely (I'm trying to be one - developing business cases for RoR adoption on small projects)
Completely agree you shouldn't choose a language just because you feel like learning a new one but the article ignores the design implications of choosing one language over another. I just don't think it is a particularly complete or well reasoned argument and is a border line rant.
I'm a full-time Java programmer now because it pays the bills. But you'd better believe I'm learning other lanaguages on the side, because it's pretty clear that Java 1.) has some serious limitations that other languages don't have, and 2.) is falling out-of-favor as a web development tool to more flexible, less statically-typed, more functional languages.
It's not so much to "open my mind" as it is to keep myself marketable after Java's impending demise.