I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…

The irony…

you know something, the english language is also just a tool. okay now, let me put you in Iran or China or Japan and working in an entirely non-english speaking environment, and i tell you - language is just a tool!

A specific language is just a specific tool.

Ruby ~ crescent wrench
Perl ~ vice grips
Java ~ a jumbo socket and open end wrench set from Sears that comes in the big red cart on wheels with drawers everywhere.
Python ~ Leatherman tool ( though most everybody hates snakes)

Just pick the right tool for the job.

Yes, you can do a lot with a good crescent wrench, especially if you use that crescent wrench for 8 hours a day and have painstakingly customized it’s IDE it for yourself. And you know 5 experts on a crescent wrench you can call at 4:00am and tell you what design patterns to use to make it work as a screwdriver.

Here is the key >> you have to be a good mechanic to use all the tools. Understanding the basics of programming and a real grokking object-oriented programming in particular.

Then, a it is a matter of a couple of weeks to become adequately proficient in a new language to begin a project. By the end of the project, you will be fluent.

Some say that learning the ins and outs of a new language is unproductive and a waste of time. Well, no more so that spending weeks putting in screws with a crescent wrench.

The root of all of this angst about languages may come improper division of project responsibilities for a project between web application programmers and
web designers. Web 2.0 makes it damn hard to find both skill sets in one person. But back in the 90’s… the livin’ was easy.

All I was doing was speculating if Google would support Java, and commenting that while this was a hard goal, there were some clues that they would.

The market is telling us to learn Python, if we want to use the Google App Engine.

If you look at the Google Android project, the same happens, people will need to learn Java if they want to practice with the Android SDK.

I don’t know what will happen next week, but maybe some other language like PHP will be on the spot. Let it be! Are you ready for that?

What I teach in my classes at college is that we need to be prepared for this. You can’t put all your money into one programming language, you need to be prepared to change with the market and also depending on your customer need.

On the same college I teach we have a study group strategy and we teach Java, C#, PHP and Ruby. I was talking to the guys last Saturday and we are going to create a new study group to work with Python. That’s life!

How is the basic intent of human language is different from programming language? Even if you know multiple languages, you will always communicate better in your mother tongue than any other language. Learning language is not just about its syntax. The more you use it the better you know about its best practices. Learning a new programming language and be best in it takes time. The question is whether you can afford it, but not your ability to learn new language.

Steve, Swahili is a human language, not a programming language, you need to talk to people in a language they understand, but a real developer must know at least two programing languages if you learn a second programming language, you will program better in both.

That said, I agree with you all about the productivity, you cannot be productive in one day in a new programming language, and this is really a problem if you are planning to use the App Engine to publish your company product.

Simon, for dynamic languages an IDE is not needed as it is needed to develop Java for example, I had the same doubts when I started programming in Ruby, I came from java too, and I could not understand how to work without an IDE, I still sing Eclipse to develop Java programs, I use Flex Builder to work with Flex, I use Visual Studio to work with C++ for windows and KDevelop to work with C++ for Unix (I do not like the Eclipse C++ IDE), but I use only gedit to work with Ruby because I do not need an IDE for that, and it is the same with Python (yes, I tested IntelliJ IDEA, Aptana and Netbeans to work with Ruby, bt none have advantages to justify their height, so I use only a text editor with code highlight for this)

But this post is my opinion, and I really believe that if you cannot learn a programming language and be productive with it in a week you can not think of yourself as a good developer.
I started with Delphi, learned C++ (for dos, windows and linux), Leader, Visual Basic, PHP, ASP, Java and all the web languages (XHTML, CSS, Javascript, …)

After the second programming language, the others are very easy to learn, but this is just my opinion.
And it is justified in all projects I worked in the last 5 years, all needed more than one language …