I am language-agnostic

Once upon a time I used to think programming in Java was the best thing anyone could do. All this changed when I started my internship and realised I had to program in PHP whether I liked it or not. PHPwhat?! I didn’t like it and felt that PHP was just not the way to go. Why would I need to learn an interpreted language? What were these $ signs? Surely, I wrongly presumed, only ‘fake’ programmers wrote PHP.

I had no other offers and joined the firm – after six weeks trudging the streets of Lagos; I was pretty much ready to take up anything – I immediately resolved to only use PHP at work and continue learning Java on my own. A routine soon emerged – I would study/code in PHP at work and learn/read/try out Java projects at home/on my way home/ at the weekends.

As I learnt more about web development, I slowly came to appreciate the power of PHP and it eventually became my forte; surprising right? I never quite thought I would turn out this way too; I wanted to be a Java guru when I started. After spending hours developing software and learning new languages, paradigms and patterns, I’ve dropped my language-centric attitude. For me, what really counts now is understanding the underlying principles of software development, having a good grasp of programming basics and using the right language for the problem at hand.

I don’t quite bother myself over language wars anymore; my major concern is using the best-suited language to solve the task at hand. I most likely won’t develop a mobile application using PHP; I’ll consider Java first. If you want to stick to your preferred language because it has a zero learning curve and solves the problem at hand in a good way; then use it and get the job DONE.

S.I.M.P.L.E :D

What do you think?