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How many programming languages do you regularly switch between?

Sherry Day on March 28, 2022

Whether because of your job or your personal habits, how many languages do you effectively use simultaneously?

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Brian Burton

When people ask why I love TypeScript so much, this is why -- no language switching.

We built our platform from the ground up on TS and so we only need developers with a single skillset, one set of build tools and one set of linting tools. Being able to move a developer to anywhere in the project we need extra hands is such an amazing experience.

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Constantin • Edited

Writing backend typescript and writing frontend typescript are two different skillsets. Fronted uses webpack (most of the time) backend esbuild or tsc. OK the linter is the same but with different rules. Often even the testing framework differs.
Just to name a few.

Sounds like this statement came from a manager that had not developed for years.
Sorry no offense intended.

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Brian Burton

It's far more homogenous than having an Angular/React/Vue frontend SPA and a Java/Python/C# backend and we're able to modulate the team to where we need them on the product as a whole, not on a subsection. But I appreciate your concern.

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Constantin

That's true.
It's just important to know that backend development is different than frontend development.
Creating a REST api requires knowledge about api design, http methods, persistence and knowledge about frameworks like expressjs and their quirks. A UI needs knowledge about state management and proper api-design for components in their respective UI frameworks.(react/angular/vue/orwhatevertheyinventtomorrow).

Those concepts are not connected to the language itself.
I agree however that it's more comfortable to not have to learn a different syntax. But the knowledge of how to define a function and a variable is not comparable to the knowledge of the different concepts a developer needs to understand :)

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Jeremy Friesen

I switch between: Ruby, Lisp, SQL, CSS, Bash, Javascript, HTML, Markdown, and Org Mode.

Ruby's the core of my day job, and I use Lisp to configure my editor to help with all of my writing. Everything else is much more of an as needed.

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Richard Guay

Currently, I switch between JavaScript, HTML, CSS, go, Node (just a little different from JavaScript), Lua, and Fish shell. I often write utility scripts in Awk, and jq. I use Python, PHP, and Lisp/Scheme to write extensions at various times for programs like fman, Alfred, LaunchBar, etc.

In my career, I have written significant amount of code (over 1,000 lines) in 22 different programming languages. There isn’t a one language for everything, but you have to pick the best tool for each job! That has always been my philosophy.

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Chris Greening

These days I'm mostly in on data engineering so I'm flipping between a lot of Python, R, SQL and shell scripting

On the occasional freelance web dev days I'm repeatedly flipping between Python, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, Sass, and shell scripting

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Jonah Lawrence

For work, I use mostly PHP, SQL, and JavaScript, some Python and Bash for scripting. HTML and CSS too if those count.

For side projects, I mostly use Python. Some of projects use PHP or JavaScript. For repository files and documentation, I could add Markdown and RST.

I tutor in C, C++, Java, and several other languages.

There are 25+ languages that I am familiar with and have used. On a daily basis, I'd say between 3 and 6 different languages.

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Mike Talbot ⭐

C++ for Unreal, C# for Unity, Javascript for work and side-projects (HTML, CSS, React, Svelte), Java for Android coding, Objective-C/Swift for iOS plugins etc.

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cGIfl300 • Edited

node, python, html, css, javascript, typescript, shell, sql, orms, bash, react, differents clouds... really too much lol
For personnal project I like much the DJango Stack, Bootstrap/react as frontend, postgres as database. Hosted on heroku, ibm codeengine or whatever like that. Thus I just have to push on github and everything deploy.

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Diner Das

Python, JavaScript (and Html/CSS), and shell script. Don't have many days where I don't consistently switch between all of those.

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Omer Lahav

I'm a WordPress/PHP developer right now, and only the WordPress plugin I'm working on right now makes me work with PHP/SQL/JavaScript/CSS/HTML altogether.
In the rest of the time, I use different JS/PHP libraries & frameworks as well like Vue.js/jQuery/Laravel.

Now I feel bad to see how everyone else here use much more languages than me :)

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Ian Wheeler • Edited

I try to limit programming to 1 skill set at a time e.g. Front end or back end, machine learning or database architecture, etc. Only a few languages in each topic depending on tech trends and try to learn iteratively on core skills

TLDR; I’ve gravited toward Node, Python, SQL, SASS; primarily web development right now and scripting for automation

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Rafael Osipov

For my everyday job I use C#, JavaScript, SQL today. For my hobby projects I use TypeScript, Java, Golang and Python.

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Ahmed Nagi

I switch between PHP and Javascript quite often although I'm enjoying using them both!

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𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

Mainly between Ruby, JavaScript and Lua; only rarely a bit of C. Does (ba|z|*)sh count though?

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Emanuele Bartolesi

C#, React, CSS, PowerShell.

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David Dal Busco

These days lots of Svelte, vanilla Javascript & TypeScript, StencilJS, a bit of React and Motoko

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Thomas Hansen

TypeScript, C#, Hyperlambda, SQL, CQL, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Markdown and Bash. Not all are technically programming languages, but these are the main ones ...

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Bernd Wechner

Commonly: Python, JavaScript.

Less frequently: Bash, CSS, SQL, C#, HTML, Markdown, Wikitext, PHP, Perl

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marouane moutih

Between php, java and javascript.

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Mike

At work, lots of C# and SQL, with html, css, and typescript mixed in.

Personal site & games: add in Javascript, Java/Kotlin, Lua.

Pretty neat how it doesn't feel difficult to adjust to each one.

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AllSeerEye

I switch between Python, Lua, and Go.

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Thorsten Hirsch

5: Javascript, Solidity, Typescript, Java, Ruby

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csvobao

I'm still in college so I try as many as possible to improve the ability to learn new language faster. Recently I use Rust (Actix), Java (Spring Boot) and also Php (Laravel)
Fix me if I'm wrong.

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CuriousDev

Mostly JavaScript or TypeScript and also HTML with some CSS. Less C# and if you accept no-code/low-code "languages", Power Automate Cloud Flows.

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Vazgen Harutyunyan

JS,TS,GLSL,Processing,CSS,HTML,SQL

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cuongnguyen11

JS/TS (react, node, html/css) <-> ruby (rails)

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Panagiotis Mirmigkis

Mostly, I'm switching all the time between Java, C#, Javascript (node.js), Typescript (React/Angular) and sometimes PHP due to many projects that I'm involved.