I’ve been with my favorite language for years now.
Everything was fine until they came out of nowhere.
Sure they were inspired.
Sure they were sexy with new features.
We clicked so well together.
We went on a few trial dates together.
It was pretty amazing what we were able to do together.
It felt like we were made for each other. We felt perfect together.
We went out on our honeymoon trip and built some incredible software.
After that things weren’t the same.
I was lost.
I couldn’t figure out what to do.
I was stuck in my old ways of writing.
I went back to my old favorite and was welcomed back with open arms.
I knew everything there.
Everything was exactly where it was before I left.
We got back to business and we got stuff done.
And then the next one showed up…
GOTO: LINE 1
There are always new programming languages coming out. Get your new language features here. Get your new runtimes there. Yada yada yada. Always changing, always churning.
This cycle of excitement followed by frustration seems to be a super common experience I have. First it was JavaScript, then it was Rust, Zig, Elixir, and most recently Gleam.
Not to disparage any of these incredible languages but after my honeymoon phase (2-3 weeks) with each of them, I would eventually find my way back to “default” languages to solve my problems, like Python, Go, and C++.
So far the languages that have been the stickiest have been the ones I’ve been able to get immediate use cases for, ones that have been used for existing projects, or ones that I was forced to use for school or work. I am able to get past the trough of disillusionment and stick with it after the honeymoon phase because of immediate use cases and continuous use.
I still haven’t quite figured out how to get past the trough for those other languages. Some will just by necessity while others won’t. That is okay. I just need to be more aware of the cycle and the inevitable drop.