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I used to speak Russian like I was born in Russia. I stopped talking Russian … every day I am curious ans responsible but I can hardly say 10 words in Russian today. if you don’t use it (not just be curious and responsible) you will lose it - period.

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Programming language is not just syntax, keywords and standard libraries, but also: processes, best practices and design principles. The latter group I guess is more difficult to learn and harder to forget.

I respectfully completely disagree. not only will you just as easily lose thr processed, best practices and design principles but they will be changing over time (what was best practice when I got my first gig in 1997 is not a best practice today (even just 4-5 years ago not to go all the back to the 90’s)). all that is super easy to both forget and lose unless you live it daily

Forget, yes; lose, no. Like it would be much easier for you to relearn Russian - especially compared with someone who only knows English.

More fair comparison would be writing/talking about Russian language in English. That way you'd still focus on Russian. Same way with programming - it's not like you stop seeing any code. So why should you forget it?

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