The point that the OP is making is not to avoid new technologies, but to avoid technology that isn't ready for prime time (and higher ed efforts are a great examples of this). That is "ok" advice in many cases, but don't avoid things because they are new. Few get great jobs and salaries for failing to take risks.
Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#32Meh, this is unfortunate advice because everyone tends to act this way too much . Almost everybody errs towards stable technologies; the exceptions are people with a genuine interest in the novel. They are disproportionately vocal so judging from the internet there's a lot of them, but in reality they're a minority. This makes sense psychologically. The cost of spending an extra day setting up a build system? It's ob…
Pretty bad advice imo. History is littered with examples of tech companies that used the wrong programming technology to build their app, then had to rewrite or otherwise go through significant pain when the failings became apparent at scale.
Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. On the other hand, the beauty of a small startup is that you can do whatever the fuck you want. If Sullivan knew a few really good haskell programmers, it may even have been the correct business decision in his case.
But if I were making a web back-end meant to scale, and I know very good java programmers and very good haskell programmers, it makes more sense to go with the tried and true(even though it's not as fun).
I would also take most X language is better than Y with huge grains of salt. It's much like the my phone is better than your phone debate, the people making the noise have spent thousands of hours deeply learning language X and tend to be heavily biased.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#33There is a nice short story on this subject: "Superiority" by Arthur C. Clarke. You can find a summary and a full text link here: http://www.kareemamin.com/post/5060094569/3-lessons-for-star...
That was a good read. Thanks.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#34Meh, this is unfortunate advice because everyone tends to act this way too much . Almost everybody errs towards stable technologies; the exceptions are people with a genuine interest in the novel. They are disproportionately vocal so judging from the internet there's a lot of them, but in reality they're a minority. This makes sense psychologically. The cost of spending an extra day setting up a build system? It's ob…
Pretty bad advice imo. History is littered with examples of tech companies that used the wrong programming technology to build their app, then had to rewrite or otherwise go through significant pain when the failings became apparent at scale. Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. On the other hand, the beauty of a small startup is that you can do whatever…
> Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool.
Actually, there are many more Haskell programmers than jobs available, so it's possible to pick and choose when hiring.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretty bad advice imo. History is littered with examples of tech companies that used the wrong programming technology to build their app, then had to rewrite or otherwise go through significant pain when the failings became apparent at scale. Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. On the other hand, the beauty of a small startup is that you can do whatever…
> Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. Actually, there are many more Haskell programmers than jobs available, so it's possible to pick and choose when hiring.
Interesting, but how many are good enough that they make up for the handicaps of poor library support and whatever other issues people have when they use Haskell for 'real' work.
And how many are willing to stay at your company when it becomes bigger and more boring?
Many Haskell programmers come from academia, how many are willing to do boring business logic?
Not saying it's always the wrong choice, but I think there's pretty sound reasoning for avoiding esoteric languages.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#36Meh, this is unfortunate advice because everyone tends to act this way too much . Almost everybody errs towards stable technologies; the exceptions are people with a genuine interest in the novel. They are disproportionately vocal so judging from the internet there's a lot of them, but in reality they're a minority. This makes sense psychologically. The cost of spending an extra day setting up a build system? It's ob…
Pretty bad advice imo. History is littered with examples of tech companies that used the wrong programming technology to build their app, then had to rewrite or otherwise go through significant pain when the failings became apparent at scale. Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. On the other hand, the beauty of a small startup is that you can do whatever…
Rewrites happen even with PHP, once it becomes clear that their product is creaky, slow, and no one good is willing to maintain it. (To be clear, I'm sure PHP is appropriate for many situations, but I have seen people trying to dig themselves out of a slow PHP framework, and a better PHP framework isn't evaluated to be as worthwhile as moving to a different platform.) As much as some managerial types try to deny it, tools end up having an effect on the product. The skilled people they hire are often right when they try telling them that the tools aren't appropriate for the job. At least if they're experienced and provide a reasonable, fair analysis.
Tools present tradeoffs. Advantages and disadvantages. Haskell can be very problematic for a business, unless you know how to deal with its disadvantages, or aren't affected by them.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Haskell is a bad choice for business simply because you limit yourself to a very small talent pool. Actually, there are many more Haskell programmers than jobs available, so it's possible to pick and choose when hiring.
Interesting, but how many are good enough that they make up for the handicaps of poor library support and whatever other issues people have when they use Haskell for 'real' work. And how many are willing to stay at your company when it becomes bigger and more boring? Many Haskell programmers come from academia, how many are willing to do boring business logic? Not saying it's always the wrong choice, but I think ther…
Actually, I've found that Haskell libraries are absolutely fantastic- For me, its ecosystem is superior to other languages I've used, and I find libraries tend to be better designed and easier to pick up and use.
> And how many are willing to stay at your company when it becomes bigger and more boring?
I feel like this is an argument that could apply to any set of programmers- I'm not sure I see how it's relevant to Haskellers in particular.
> Many Haskell programmers come from academia, how many are willing to do boring business logic?
I don't know, but it's almost certainly non-zero. I know of a few Haskellers with PhDs working in startups.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#38Meh, this is unfortunate advice because everyone tends to act this way too much . Almost everybody errs towards stable technologies; the exceptions are people with a genuine interest in the novel. They are disproportionately vocal so judging from the internet there's a lot of them, but in reality they're a minority. This makes sense psychologically. The cost of spending an extra day setting up a build system? It's ob…
No Meh: you and the blogger are substantially in accord on your optimal tech stack:
someone would inevitably point out a language that
gracefully handled that particular issue in a much
nicer way than Haskell, ML, or Erlang.
Except that the suggested language was an in-progress
research project.Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#39Times change. Interestingly enough, "fringe" languages were breathed new life with introduction of LLVM, and Haskell is no longer research project, so there are industry job offers there too. And we know what happened with "winners" within a wave of dynamic languages: JavaScript, Python and Ruby developers are quite often paid higher wages, than old-style C programmers.
JavaScript, Python and Ruby developers are quite often paid higher wages
Based on what I've seen, good C++ programmers working in areas like finance and aerospace still command higher wages than most JavaScript or Ruby devs.
Re: Don't Be Distracted by Superior Technology
#40Can someone point us to a reference explaining Modula-2's module system and what made it a superior module system to other module systems?
I believe the main point was that C, C++ and JavaScript lack module systems entirely, which has been shown to be a very bad idea.