I've always taken this to heart, but not necessarily with programming languages. Any piece of software that helps run my business that I can reasonably make and maintain myself, I do. I build my own CI/CD app, orchestration/deployment tool, task planner, bug tracker, release note editing & publishing tools, blog editor, logstash/viewer for exceptions, etc.
Does building (and especially maintaining!) all of these tools take up a lot of time, and distract me from the primary business of building the software that I actually sell? Sure, of course it does. But it also keeps me fresh and forces me to expand the scope of ideas that I regularly work with, and keeps me from becoming "that guy who makes that one app" and who isn't capable of moving outside of his comfort zone.
And while that doesn't (yet) extend to building my own tools in my own languages, it certainly does extend to writing my own DSLs for things like configuration management or infrastructure. My tools may be homerolled and second-rate, but they're mine (dammit!) and -- this part is important -- no one can take them away from me or catch me out with a licensing rug-pull.
I've always taken this to heart, but not necessarily with programming languages. Any piece of software that helps run my business that I can reasonably make and maintain myself, I do. I build my own CI/CD app, orchestration/deployment tool, task planner, bug tracker, release note editing & publishing tools, blog editor, logstash/viewer for exceptions, etc.
Does building (and especially maintaining!) all of these tools take up a lot of time, and distract me from the primary business of building the software that I actually sell? Sure, of course it does. But it also keeps me fresh and forces me to expand the scope of ideas that I regularly work with, and keeps me from becoming "that guy who makes that one app" and who isn't capable of moving outside of his comfort zone.
And while that doesn't (yet) extend to building my own tools in my own languages, it certainly does extend to writing my own DSLs for things like configuration management or infrastructure. My tools may be homerolled and second-rate, but they're mine (dammit!) and -- this part is important -- no one can take them away from me or catch me out with a licensing rug-pull.