Wasabi all the fuss?

Never one to shy from the tail lights of a hurtling bandwagon, I have a thing or two to say about Wasabi-gate.

Either...
"Writing your own language is bad, m'kay" - Tickletux's summary of Jeff Atwood's attack on Wasabi
or
"Write Code That Writes Code" - Tip 29 from The Pragmatic Programmer (p.103 in the section on code generators).
Is writing your own language always bad? Would I want to join a company that used its own in-house language to develop core software?

My gut reaction is "yes" and "no". I have a career to manage and skills to hone and, surely, anything I learn there is going to be dead knowledge; Wasabi is not a transferable skill. Mercifully, I'm trying not to think with my gut so much these days. It always has lots to say, but if you grep -v Pizza, the rest is just so much hot air and bile.

No, that's a lazy, pre-pragmatic, poorly digested response.

Learning new tools and technologies is always good, not just because those things add to your person cannon but also because the process of learning is good. If we're going to learn a new language every year, why shouldn't one of them, were we (that'll be the Royal we) hired by Fog Creek, be Wasabi.

Besides, what is Wasabi if not an elaborate code generator?

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