php is much maligned here on HN, but it doesn't mean that it automatically makes for a bad programmer.
Here's another exmaple for you: Over the years, the project I work on has used the following:
vb .NET
C# .NET
WCF
asp Webforms
MVC2
MVC4
The result is a maintenance headache (it's not a nightmare, but we do have to pause every time we unexpectedly encounter VB!), and that's where we've been disciplined enough to stay within the MS/ASP stack. Had developers been allowed to really go off-piste then we no doubt would have even more choices, and as a result be even less maintainable.
Yes, you might not be attractive to a certain subset of programmers if you are seen to be not using a trendy new language or framework, but there's the other side that by often switching you are left with a long laundry list you need to satisfy when you're recruiting so they can maintain the older parts. We already don't require vb experience, and we expect that people can pick it up well enough to maintain it, but a side-project in "go" might seem fun now, but if it becomes part of the business then you might find that in 5 years you have to take a bad choice in recruiting because otherwise you're left without anyone who can maintain that application.
> but it doesn't mean that it automatically makes for a bad programmer.
I came to PHP late from proper languages circa 2008/2009ish been programming since I was a kid in the 80's, I've no great love for the language, it's purely a tool and once you ignore the rusty bits it's not a bad language for a lot of web stuff but I've never been concerned with purity/beauty for it's own sake I just care about what I can do in a language, these days I use PHP a lot on the web, Python for just about everything else (even my build system for automating browserify is in Python using Envoy) and I play with Go and such on the side.
All that and there is a lot of work in PHP clearing up after others (if you like those kinds of engineering problems which I do) which is also nice.
Here's another exmaple for you: Over the years, the project I work on has used the following:
vb .NET C# .NET
WCF asp Webforms MVC2 MVC4
The result is a maintenance headache (it's not a nightmare, but we do have to pause every time we unexpectedly encounter VB!), and that's where we've been disciplined enough to stay within the MS/ASP stack. Had developers been allowed to really go off-piste then we no doubt would have even more choices, and as a result be even less maintainable.
Yes, you might not be attractive to a certain subset of programmers if you are seen to be not using a trendy new language or framework, but there's the other side that by often switching you are left with a long laundry list you need to satisfy when you're recruiting so they can maintain the older parts. We already don't require vb experience, and we expect that people can pick it up well enough to maintain it, but a side-project in "go" might seem fun now, but if it becomes part of the business then you might find that in 5 years you have to take a bad choice in recruiting because otherwise you're left without anyone who can maintain that application.