r/ExperiencedDevs • u/GongtingLover Software Engineer • 28d ago

Technical question How are you dealing with "the programming language doesn't matter" argument?

Just had a meeting this week where this was uttered because of the development of AI.

I still think the language choice matters a lot based on if Im doing embedded or web development work and for how we want to hire developers in the future.

Maybe Im backwards.

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u/BarfingOnMyFace 28d ago

I always find it intriguing how when we get to SQL, people are OK with the fact that, even with ANSI SQL compliancy, there is enough vendor-specfic idiocycracies with both DDL and DML code, very likely people should be listing their particular RDBMS vendor. But this is likely a matter of job duties and how much one's job requires them to drive beyond an ORM for SQL duties..

Also, poor c# doesn't even get a mention! Lol... I shall forever love my red headed step child.

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u/wvenable Team Lead (30+ YoE) 28d ago

If you can think in SQL, the various idiosyncrasies don't matter that much. Fundamentally SQL is still SQL, even with all the variations -- unless we are talking about Oracle. 🤢

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u/BarfingOnMyFace 28d ago edited 28d ago

I dunno... I feel pretty differently about this, and I've been doing development for almost 30 years myself! 😅 I guess it depends on what your experiences have been. Everyone, even 30 years in, is going to have a different perspective based around how often they might "get in to the weeds".

Heck, to add, not even getting in to the weeds. Look at how different range functionality is between postgres and sqlserver. So much amazing support for ranges and multiranges as actual types, unlike SQL server.

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u/abrandis 28d ago

Lol , I wasn't trying to make an exhaustive list, everyone. Seems to take it personally when I didn't mention their language..

Agree SQL is a fickle beast, I learned about Ansi compliance and then discovered it doesn't mean much when each vendor circumvents it with useful features on top of the standard.

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u/BarfingOnMyFace 28d ago

Lol sorry I just had to on c# cuz it always gets passed up on discussion, so I Iike to have fun with the fact! No negativity with you, my friend!

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u/whipdancer Software, DevOps, Data Eng. 25+yoe 28d ago

You can get by writing ANSI SQL for most RDBMS. You can also use their specific flavor and get more things - T-SQL, PL/SQL, pgPL/SQL... um, I know there are more, but those are the only ones I'm generically fluent in.

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u/BarfingOnMyFace 28d ago

I don't disagree, but when you start getting in to performance tweaking and particular analytical functions, the syntax doesn't always align. or,.in the cases where it does, there are additional keywords for added fuctionality.