I know a few successful programmers, who have spent many years of their life writing software, and in that time I’m yet to see them try any other language or platform—many of them clinging to the tools they started with.

Despite a wealth of software to choose from, they stick to the tools they started with. “It’s so easy”, “I know what i’m doing” and other reasons keep them in a software monoculture.

I think if anything it will be a fashionable technology, like no-sql or non-blocking, that will tempt them into new domains. As much as I rail against fads, developers do get exposed to more technologies and ideas as a result.

Nothing else can prise them from their battle tested homebrew utility library, lovingly copied and pasted from one project to the next (Bonus points if the file is actually called ‘util’).

I’m not trying to accuse these coders of abandoning all desire to learn—but you don’t learn anything doing the same things over and over. Ten years of using a language doesn’t count for much when it’s the same year repeated ten times. Then again, learning to do something in a new language is unpredictable, and not always enjoyable.

Maybe they’d rather have something that works which can be delivered on time—and spend their time learning, taking risks, and having fun elsewhere.

Instead of only learning to program.