I find different languages quite interesting in programming. It is mind boggling that there are so many and so many personal preferences to go along with them. Compounded with the fact that they are almost all constantly changing and evolving. I just finished an interesting glance at an article on a visual comparison of language complexity
It highlights something interesting for the DevOps movement and Systems Engineering in general. I feel that going forward less and less emphasis will be on systems and more on programming. Systems teams will need to adapt to this changing environment by learning to "program" their systems, rather than ad-hoc managing of hosts. Programming is the only way to achieve scale. But with the constant change of languages coupled with their complexity, is it reasonable to expect an average systems engineer to be proficient in multiple languages or even proficient in one?
Many of the openings for "DevOps" roles that I have seen have been looking more for a programmer and less for a systems engineer. Someone with a decade of experience as a developer or some such, who then decided Ops was their cup of tea. Even with the experience though, once they got into the dynamic world of systems/ops would they keep up to date on their languages? How could they even remember them? If I don't spend a substantial amount of time programming in a language, then I quickly forget it. And working in Ops, even though I'm daily looking and working with code, I don't know if its enough on its own for a programmer to keep proficient and up-to-date on their skills.
Hmm... Thinking, thinking, thinking.