It's very rare that any programmer switches computer languages. You're probably going to retire as a c programmer.
What are they going to teach in school? What are new systems programmers going to start with? I suspect it'll be rust and go, not c.
What are they going to teach in school? What are new systems programmers going to start with? I suspect it'll be rust and go, not c.
Or is it?
I regularly use six different languages of three paradigms and various abstraction levels, and this doesn't count DSLs nor Turing-complete tools like make. Of my colleagues from current job, half of the more experienced set write in at least three languages as well. Of the team from my previous job, all of them are polyglots. And of course none of us started with all the languages, we picked them up as needed and wanted.
To recap this has been my life as a programmer: Java -> JavaScript -> PHP -> Python/C/Assembly
This dream that most people have made up about programmers not switching languages is a dream. I switch whenever one language can do a task better then another. I don't get caught up in "best language" fights.
I play with a lot of languages but I've invested a lot of time into learning python and getting a nice python workflow going. It would take a lot for me to switch to another primary first language.
I work at a tech company that's been around since the 90s and the guys that were writing perl and java in the 90s are still writing perl and java. You'd have to drag them kicking and screaming into using a different language.
What may look like "bah humbug I'll use X because I like it" may just be picking a language on concerns not limited to features. Looking at social concerns is important as well. Who is maintaining your code after you're gone? Company tooling for certain languages? Will I get fired for using it (AI winter)?
Lots of big questions
Do you have any data to support this claim?
It crosses boundaries.