Ask HN: When you meet a fellow programmer "in the wild",

[probably]

...is it cliche to ask them what language they program in? Is there a better topic of conversation?

[benologist]

What kind of work they do is far more interesting than what language they do it in.

[akkartik]

My mantra lately: there are no bad languages, only bad codebases.

(Corollary: most codebases are bad.)

[probably]

Of course, but after that part...

[relaunched]

Having met a few programmers in the wild, topics of interest come up and languages themselves aren't interesting. However, differences in languages, or where languages fail, sometimes come up.

Personally, leading with a language is superficial at best, and at worst, a crude filter employed to determine whether or not a person fits in with your objective or clique.

[whichdan]

This happens -all- the time at reddit meetups. We're clearly a group of mostly programmers and techy people, yet everyone describes their profession as "programming." I have to pry out what they actually do. That said, benologist has the right idea with asking what they do rather than how they do it.

[JustinChaschowy]

...What a Geeky thing to suggest, talk about sports or women, brah.

[probably]

Whups, that did not even occur to me. But shouldn't you make an attempt to talk about your common interests? ;)