> Programming languages can't all be picked up that quickly, since semantics may differ a lot. You can't say "Give me any programming task and I'll pick it up".
Speak for yourself. I learned AutoLisp with one bit of sample code someone left behind and a bit of Googling in about a week, starting from zero. Nobody else where I worked knows it at all. But from that, I coded a full set of functions that did everything we need.
I reverse-engineered the semantics of some crazy internal scripting language to some of our industrial machines. Nobody bothered to document that thing at all and it was custom to my employer.
I learned to use a different testing tool from nothing more than a bit of sample code and being told that it was based on VBS. I then improved the code I was given.
Some of us really can figure out the semantics of something just from reading a few examples. This also works with foreign languages. Particularly if I can get parallel translations (e.g. subtitles), I can start working backwards to extract meaning and solve for unknown words.
In short, you'd be surprised about how quickly we can figure out things, especially if we've seen something like it before. Sure, there are pitfalls, but anywhere where you have nice syntax aware IDEs and whatnot, it's not nearly as much of a barrier as you seem to think.
The more languages you've used, the easier it all is. This goes for both human and computer languages.
Speak for yourself. I learned AutoLisp with one bit of sample code someone left behind and a bit of Googling in about a week, starting from zero. Nobody else where I worked knows it at all. But from that, I coded a full set of functions that did everything we need.
I reverse-engineered the semantics of some crazy internal scripting language to some of our industrial machines. Nobody bothered to document that thing at all and it was custom to my employer.
I learned to use a different testing tool from nothing more than a bit of sample code and being told that it was based on VBS. I then improved the code I was given.
Some of us really can figure out the semantics of something just from reading a few examples. This also works with foreign languages. Particularly if I can get parallel translations (e.g. subtitles), I can start working backwards to extract meaning and solve for unknown words.
In short, you'd be surprised about how quickly we can figure out things, especially if we've seen something like it before. Sure, there are pitfalls, but anywhere where you have nice syntax aware IDEs and whatnot, it's not nearly as much of a barrier as you seem to think.
The more languages you've used, the easier it all is. This goes for both human and computer languages.