>I have met several extremely proficient COBOL programmers who worked on the same system for decades and they don't know ANYTHING about Windows. Most of these programmers are happy with who they are and I never had problems with them.

Good for them if they can make a living like that for now. But would you be confortable putting all your eggs in the same basket? I would not...

>Another analogy, most lawyers, doctors, physisist, mathematicians, etc specialize in one field (it does not mean that don't hoot about anything else, just that they are much better in their field of expertise). I know several programming languages because I enjoy the challenge and learning is what I am about. You seem to enjoy learning too but this is not a precondition to be met for enterring the field.

The days when all you needed to complete with success a project was a knowledge in one langage is near an end. More and more projects require an expertise on many langages and this trend will continue with the release of DotNET next year.