> I don't think of myself as a {language} programmer. People will ask what language you code in, and I will throw out a few current ones. But I don't think of them as some particular skill that's hard to acquire. If I need a new language, I'll read the tutorials, and then I'm able to find my way. Only exception is c++, that one I still regard as a bit of a skill, where if you haven't tried it you have a lot of concepts to learn.
I took the opposite direction; I went deep into Scala, and while I was productive from week 1, I'd say I was probably learning useful generally-applicable stuff even 7 years in. You can write Java in any language, and many people have successful careers doing so, but IMO for a rewarding career you want to learn something that's not easy; getting deep into a particular language or framework isn't the only option but it's one that's easy to explain.
I took the opposite direction; I went deep into Scala, and while I was productive from week 1, I'd say I was probably learning useful generally-applicable stuff even 7 years in. You can write Java in any language, and many people have successful careers doing so, but IMO for a rewarding career you want to learn something that's not easy; getting deep into a particular language or framework isn't the only option but it's one that's easy to explain.