Comments on: Developer Traits by Language

By: Norman

Norman — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 02:14:20 +0000

Hi Andrew, I think this is a very useful post. When working with different people and different language backgrounds it can help to understand where they are “coming from”.

Personally I found the transition from Java to VB a bit of hurdle not so much because of the language but the different approaches it leads people to take.

By: Tim Haines

Tim Haines — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:01:19 +0000

Hey Andrew. Nice opinionated post. There’s exceptions to everything, but generalising, I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:45:23 +0000

Agreed. I have used all three languages in anger including 3 years of PowerBuilder/VB so I feel comfortable comparing my experiences with them.

BTW, if you haven’t already, check out this great Scott Hanselman post on why it’s important to keep “sharpening the saw”:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ProgrammerIntentOrWhatYoureNotGettingAboutRubyAndWhyItsTheTits.aspx

By: John-Daniel Trask

John-Daniel Trask — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 23:33:16 +0000

I think the larger concern is when developers don’t have any understanding of what else is out there. When somebody asks me about Ruby but has never even downloaded it to play with or done any reading themselves it causes me concern.

I haven’t done much with Ruby (and from what I can tell most people writing posts similar to this one don’t do it very much on a day to day basis either) but I have downloaded it, I did install Rails, have built two demo sites from scratch, written a couple of Ruby scripts and then moved on because I didn’t need it particularly in a day to day manner. I’m interested in using Ruby for basic scripting primarily though and think it is important to at least have a very basic understanding what else is out there.

- JD