Pandamonial – Amanda Laucher

Obsessed with one language? This is how most developers (not myself of course) probably view you. This might be the time to diversify! Take from these pics what you will, they all have many meanings. *Pics have been blatantly stolen from other sites, so click if you want the original source.

C#

Ruby

Java

C++

Haskell

Python

Lisp

Clojure

Scala

F#

Perl

VB

VBA

Cobol

Edit: A friend recently made a comment on twitter about the use of the word fanboy. I’m not sure if he even saw this post but I wanted to update to add my definition of the word. To me a fanboi or fanboy is a person who can not see the negative side of a specific tool because they are blinded by all of the good things. Many developers for instance fall in love with a specific language. The language feels very natural to them and it seems easy for them to model a specific set of applications. The problem comes in when those developers are unable to see that their language of choice is not perfect in every way and is not the correct language for modeling every application. Simply being passionate about a language is not a bad thing.

When there is hype around a language or tool you are not familiar with do yourself a favor and listen to the person. Don’t jump to any conclusions about the person doing the hyping. Ask the person a few questions to determine what specifically makes their language or tool great. In what way is it different to the competition. It is important that they understand that there is (most likely) competition! Also ask questions around what the language or tool is lacking. What does the competition do better? What would they change about the tool or language. At worst case they should be able to talk about what the future development plans. If the person is capable of answering those questions, they are NOT a fanboi. If not, there is a good chance that they don’t know enough to be passionate and you might be dealing with a fanboi.