This has been my experience as well.

There is another issue - that being an expertise outside of programming. For example, I specialize in financial apps because I have a heavy background in finance and accounting.

What I am trying to say here is that there are many reasons why it is not in the best interest of a developer (and therefore the client) to be simultaneouly skillfull in more than one language at the expense of other valuable expertise.

Finally, isn't it the solution that is important? While all languages have their strong points, most can achieve the same solutions by different means. The only exception here is Web stuff.


>>Programming is a discipline that is independant of the language that is used. A good programmer will be good in any language they use and a poor programmer will be poor regardless of the language.
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>This, I agree with completely.
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>>Learning a second, third, or fourth langauge is not a prohibitive endeavor. I would venture to say that most of the high quality programmers in the world use more than one language. A good carpenter needs more than a hammer and a good programmer needs more than one langauge.
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>This, I disagree with.
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>In the past 3.5 years, I've programmed almost exclusively in VFP. I did a small Access system and I made a few modifications to a VB system that I made for my home business. And I looked as some Pascal and VC++ code to try to help debug. Over 99% of my programming time has been with VFP in the past 3.5 years.
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>Before this job, I used C++ for DOS apps and VB for Windows apps. I have also learned the basics of several other languages over the years.
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>I have not needed more than one language to do my job. And our system has not suffered because it is all done in VFP. We use a contract programmer that has been around since before my time here to do any DOS and VC++ programming we require. I just don't have a need to learn another language. This is driven by the company's needs. I can't help it; that's just the way it is.
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>IMHO, there are exceptions to your statement.
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>Take care,
>Joe