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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Languages are just a little bit more complex than hammers and screwdrivers (especially C++!). This means that people usually know a few and stick with them, which makes sense. Why learn Erlang if your concurrency needs are not so great that you can kind of get by in Java or Tcl or whatever? Why learn Ruby if you know Python? Sure, some of us like to, for fun, but my guess is that most working programmers have a limited set of languages, and try and use those before going out and learning a new one just because it might provide some benefits for some particular problem. And, truth be told, that's not a stupid approach given the time involved to learn a new language well.

Also, I think people want to attract others to their tool of choice due to the positive network externalities involved.

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"Also, I think people want to attract others to their tool of choice due to the positive network externalities involved."

This is huge point. I've wasted so much time in my life fighting about what technology to use on a project- with people that aren't actually going to be writing any code on the project. Why do people care SO MUCH about what technology is used on project- even when it's a project they are NOT ON? Positive network externalities sums it up pretty well.

The crazy thing programming is that it defines people's mental models around problems. The common chestnut of Java programmers using iterative techniques in SQL stored procedures, as opposed to set based operations is borne out in reality. The different mental models associated with different languages make it hard to switch too often.

You're right: I was oversimplifying things somewhat, but I still maintain that languages are tools, not the toolbox.

To use your examples: why learn Erlang? Well, if your concurrency needs are great enough, Erlang is a great fit! If not, maybe consider another language? You pick the best and most appropriate tool for the job. Sometimes you can nail something in using your shoe, but more often than not, the best tool is a hammer.

Why learn Ruby if you know Python? Perhaps you have a project that could be taken to market significantly faster if you use Rails? Perhaps you can use Django? It really _is_ a question of the right tool: and sometimes that tool is Ruby and sometimes it's Python and sometimes it's Java (never COBOL :)).

You could probably make a strong case for any language out there. But you should make sure you're choosing the right one for your task: square pegs and square holes.

My rough feeling is that most people are better off picking a general-purpose language and sticking with it for most of what they do, rather than trying to "optimize" by picking the 'best' language for each task. The learning and the context switching, and even the decision process are probably worse overall than using the generic language, even if it is not the best one.

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