Why learn Perl, Python, Ruby if the company is using C++, C# or Java as the application language? [closed]

Answer 1

It's all about broadening your horizons as a developer. If you limit yourself to only strong-typed languages, you may not end up the best programmer you could.

As for tasks, Python/Lua/Ruby/Perl are great for small simple tasks, like finding some files and renaming them. They also work great when paired with a framework (e.g. Rails, Django, Lua for Windows) for developing simple apps quickly. Hell, 37Signals is based on creating simple yet very useful apps in Ruby on Rails.

Answer 2

Learning something with a flexible OOP system, like Lisp or Perl (see Moose), will allow you to better expand and understand your thoughts on software engineering. Ideally, every language has some unique facet (whether it be CLOS or some other technique) that enhances, extends and grows your abilities as a programmer.

Answer 3

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. - Wayne Gretzky

Our industry is always changing. No language can be mainstream forever. To me Java, C++, .Net is where the puck is right now. And python, ruby, perl is where the puck is going to be. Decide for yourself if you wanna be good or great!

Answer 4

Towards answering the updated question, its a chicken/egg problem. The best way to justify an expense is to show how it reduces a cost somewhere else, so you may need to spend some extra/personal time to learn something first to build some kind of functional prototype.

Show your boss a demo like "hey, i did this thing, and it saves me this much time [or better yet, this much $$], imagine if everyone could use this how much money we would save"

and then after they agree, explain how it is some other technology and that it is worth the expense to get more training, and training for others on how to do it better.

Answer 5

Let me turn your question on its head by asking what use it is to an American English speaker to learn another language?

The languages we speak (and those we program in) inform the way we think. This can happen on a fundamental level, such as c++ versus javascript versus lisp, or on an implementation level, in which a ruby construct provides a eureka moment for a solution in your "real job."

Speaking of your real job, if the market goes south and your employer decides to "right size" you, how do you think you'll stack up against a guy who is flexible because he's written software in tens of languages, instead of your limited exposure? All things being equal, I think the answer is clear.

Finally, you program for a living because you love programming... right?

Answer 6

They're useful for the "Quick Hack" that is for plugging a gap in your main language for a quick (and potentially dirty) fix faster than it would take to develop the same in your main language. An example: a simple script in perl to go through a large text file and replace all instances of an email address with another is trivial with an amount of time taken in the 10 minute range. Hacking a console app together to do the same in your main language would take multiples of that.

You also have the benefit that exposing yourself to additional languages broadens your abilities and learning to attack problems from a different languages perspective can be as valuable as the language itself.

Finally, scripting languages are very useful in the realm of extension. Take LUA as an example. You can bolt a lua interpreter into your app with very little overhead and you now have a way to create rich scripting functionality that can be exposed to end users or altered and distributed quickly without requiring a rebuild of the entire app. This is used to great effect in many games most notably World of Warcraft.