Sometimes, developers are a bunch of wimps.
We get so comfortable with our programming language that many of us are afraid to try something else.
Many of us learn one programming language (Java, C# or something else) and we stick to it no matter what. We do use libraries and frameworks and we’re often eager to try a new one in our project. But talks about learning a new programming language are usually met with quick rejection. We want to stay in our comfort zone.
I think something is wrong with this picture. Is learning Ruby on Rails really more difficult than learning Spring? Is Hibernate really simpler than activerecord?
Why are developers afraid of trying something new? Some problems can be solved easily in Clojure or Erlang. Are you sure Java/C# is the solution to your problem? It might be part of the solution, but probably not the entire solution.
Discovering ruby (and rails), I see flaws in Java that I didn’t see before. I learn a different way of doing things that expands my knowledge. When I come back to Java, I see problems from another point of view and sometimes use a different solution than I would before learning ruby.
Why are you still afraid?
