Live data from Hacker News

PythonJobs.com

pythonjobs.com

31–40 of 66 posts

Re: PythonJobs.com

#31

Are there people out there who only want to work in one language or be hired explicitly for one language? On the other side are there employers who only want people well versed in X language? I guess what I'm getting at is: most great developers I've met choose and use whatever language is the best fit for the job, even if it isn't their favorite. Targeting a specific language appears to be more of a niche, to me, an…

I probably wouldn't want to hire an employee that only wants to work in one language, but I can definitely see a case where I'd want to hire a contractor that only works in Python.

Also, if my entire codebase is in Python, it might make sense to at least target someone who shows a preference for working in Python.

Re: PythonJobs.com

#32
post #15

Job site without SSL? That's new. Maybe they are just listing the jobs, and linking directly to companies' own postings? Email First Name Last Name Upload Resume Nope. So, yeah.. no.

Yeah I checked to see if it was simply not redirecting to https and was sad to see the typical cert warning since it tries to use a heroku cert by default (e.g. the developer didn't set one up). I'm curious if the paying of $199 goes over SSL or not. I would hope so but I didn't want to go through the process to find out.

I just tested it, payment is handled over HTTPS

Re: PythonJobs.com

#33

Are there people out there who only want to work in one language or be hired explicitly for one language? On the other side are there employers who only want people well versed in X language? I guess what I'm getting at is: most great developers I've met choose and use whatever language is the best fit for the job, even if it isn't their favorite. Targeting a specific language appears to be more of a niche, to me, an…

I don't necessarily only want to work in only one language, but I certainly enjoy working in some languages more than others. That being the case, all else being equal, between two jobs I would choose the one with the language I prefer.

It's kind of like.. employee benefits I guess? If I am going to have to spend most of my life programming I'd rather do it in a less painful way.

>what if, in order to scale, a different language is more appropriate and you hired only Python experts?

I don't think this is really an issue. Just because someone is a Python expert doesn't imply that the person doesn't know its good and bad parts. If anything they might understand the limitations even better and know when it's time to switch.

Re: PythonJobs.com

#34

Are there people out there who only want to work in one language or be hired explicitly for one language? On the other side are there employers who only want people well versed in X language? I guess what I'm getting at is: most great developers I've met choose and use whatever language is the best fit for the job, even if it isn't their favorite. Targeting a specific language appears to be more of a niche, to me, an…

Where I'm at right now in my career, I'd like to work on Python, but I don't. I don't want to do .Net anymore but I do.

Re: PythonJobs.com

#36
post #33

Are there people out there who only want to work in one language or be hired explicitly for one language? On the other side are there employers who only want people well versed in X language? I guess what I'm getting at is: most great developers I've met choose and use whatever language is the best fit for the job, even if it isn't their favorite. Targeting a specific language appears to be more of a niche, to me, an…

I don't necessarily only want to work in only one language, but I certainly enjoy working in some languages more than others. That being the case, all else being equal, between two jobs I would choose the one with the language I prefer. It's kind of like.. employee benefits I guess? If I am going to have to spend most of my life programming I'd rather do it in a less painful way. >what if, in order to scale, a differ…

Fair enough

> I don't think this is really an issue. Just because someone is a Python expert doesn't imply that the person doesn't know its good and bad parts. If anything they might understand the limitations even better and know when it's time to switch.

While I completely agree with you, in theory, I've never actually experienced this. My anecdotal experience with people who tend to become experts with a specific language has almost always been them trying to force it for every single use case.

I'm hoping my personal experience is less indicative of the industry in general but I really have no data to go off of beyond it.

Re: PythonJobs.com

#37

Are there people out there who only want to work in one language or be hired explicitly for one language? On the other side are there employers who only want people well versed in X language? I guess what I'm getting at is: most great developers I've met choose and use whatever language is the best fit for the job, even if it isn't their favorite. Targeting a specific language appears to be more of a niche, to me, an…

Yes and yes and it's perfectly fine in my opinion.

It seems to me that programming language count is overvalued in online discussions on e.g. HN or reddit. The argument is that each extra programming language makes one a better programmer and it's one's duty to learn as many as possible.

However, this is not realistic:

* becoming fluent is a language means knowing the style, idioms, libraries and ecosystem and very importantly delivering software created with that language. It will take years to reach this level (see Norvig's essay about learning a programming language in 10 years).

* knowledge has a half-life: not using a language means that your knowledge will slowly become obsolete, one will forget library usage patterns, etc. This can happen very fast for e.g Javascript or slowly for e.g: C.

* a programming language is a very complex tool and it's really hard to be and remain fluent in (my estimate) more than three languages at the same time. As an example, I've already forgotten a lot of Java and a lot of Android in less than 9 months - I can ramp up pretty fast, a few weeks, but I won't be anywhere near the level of productivity of a full-time Java dev. I have the feeling that most devs that know many languages know them well enough, not inside out.

* learning languages will take away time that can be better spent learning other important topics such as architecture, people skills, domain-specific topics, etc.

Finally there's personal preference. Some people like X, have specialised in it and would like to use it as much as possible. Why shouldn't they? If you invest years of your life in something, you don't switch unless you have a good reason.

As long as one is successful using this strategy, I don't see anything wrong. Software engineering isn't supposed to be a fashion show - we should use what works and switch only when there's a need.

Re: PythonJobs.com

#38
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily only want to work in only one language, but I certainly enjoy working in some languages more than others. That being the case, all else being equal, between two jobs I would choose the one with the language I prefer. It's kind of like.. employee benefits I guess? If I am going to have to spend most of my life programming I'd rather do it in a less painful way. >what if, in order to scale, a differ…

Fair enough > I don't think this is really an issue. Just because someone is a Python expert doesn't imply that the person doesn't know its good and bad parts. If anything they might understand the limitations even better and know when it's time to switch. While I completely agree with you, in theory, I've never actually experienced this. My anecdotal experience with people who tend to become experts with a specific…

My experience shows that good developers are usually (always?) open for discussion, no matter how many languages they consider themselves to know well. Needless to say, these people aren't nearly as many as we want them to be…
Post reply on HN