Enough D to Make a Living?

[pineapple via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 21 February 2017 at 18:32:22 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:
> On 02/21/2017 10:34 AM, Paul wrote:
>> 3) Is there much value in taking programming classes that 
>> don't deal
>> with D?
>
> Although HR folk never understand this, programming skills are 
> highly transferable across languages. So yes, it's definitely 
> worthwhile: Getting better with one language will help you be a 
> better programmer in other languages.

Very much this. Companies are never impressed by my knowing any 
language in particular, they're impressed by the fact I've 
written code in so many different languages. Statically-typed 
languages, dynamic languages, scripting languages, JVM languages, 
assembly languages, etc. etc. etc. Definitely let yourself spend 
the most time on a language or two you enjoy most, because it's 
still important to demonstrate that you're able to know a 
language front-to-back. But experiment with as many other 
languages as you can, as much as you feel comfortable and then 
some, because that's how you gradually get to a place where the 
only thing separating you from proficiency with any programming 
language is a week or two of ramp-up time. And that alone makes 
you employable almost anywhere.

As for employability: These days, one of the absolute best things 
you can do is to have an active github account. Put your projects 
in public repositories, even the small ones, and any time you 
think of something interesting or you need a tool for yourself, 
commit code to the site while you're developing it. And never be 
afraid to submit PRs for improving other people's repos, because 
it's almost always welcome and it also looks great in terms of 
employability because it shows how comfortable you are working 
with other people's code.

The overwhelming majority of jobs these days involve writing C++, 
C#, Java, JavaScript, or Python. You will have a much easier time 
finding a job writing code mainly in one of those languages than 
one writing code in D - but that doesn't make learning D useless, 
or anything close to it. Everything you learn by writing D will 
be transferable to those other languages, especially C++. Just 
stay aware that it is well worth your time to familiarize 
yourself with other languages, too, and be open to the 
possibility of finding work that focuses on other languages.