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This is actually the other way round. Given: 1. People who learn Haskell put in a lot of effort for their own learning benefit - they're not usually learning H

This is actually the other way round. Given: 1. People who learn Haskell put in a lot of effort for their own learning benefit - they're not usually learning Haskell to get a job. 2. Once you learn Haskell you really kind of want a Haskell job to put all this nice stuff into practice. 3. There aren't many Haskell jobs about (in part due to a perception that it's hard to hire Haskell developers). As a company in the lucky position of hiring for a Haskell role you have a pool of people who have self selected to be above average in determination and smarts, but limited options in employment in their new tech of choice. source Built a Haskell team at a startup, now work on a Haskell team in finance. Hiring has NEVER been a problem.

akavi 10y ago
> Built a Haskell team at a startup, now work on a Haskell team in finance. Hiring has NEVER been a problem. Mind sharing names?
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  Standard Chartered is one. https://twitter.com/donsbot https://twitter.com/donsbot -- author of Real World Haskell See https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry for more. Several other financial names including Bank of America Merril Lynch, Barclays Capital, Capital IQ, Credit Suisse, Tsuru Capital are listed.
  - cm3 10y ago
    They even have their internal Haskell compiler which IIUC gets fed a dialect in order to have strict evaluation and a couple other non-standard properties. One nice thing the ecosystem got from their internal team is the official Shake implementation, which supersedes the various 3rd-party implementations and actually works really well. It even can interpret Ninja files, so it can be used in place of ninja when building things like Cmake-based projects or, say, Chromium. Not that there much of a reason to use Shake when you use Ninja, but you can and some of the reporting features might be exclusive to Shake. Usually you write a Shakefile.hs (instead of Makefile) and run it with shake.
- kawera 10y ago
  Places to spot then: https://jobs.functionalworks.com https://jobs.functionalworks.com https://functionaljobs.com/ https://functionaljobs.com/
Lewisham 10y ago
"Putting all this nice stuff into practice" is the kicker. I'd really like to do FP work, but I'm not willing to leave my current employer to do it. I think there's basically a skunk works deal of Haskell at Facebook, and F# for n programmers where n is basically unknown externally... and that's it. Am I missing someone that's a) in Silicon Valley b) mature enough that the benefits are there (such as always being paid on time, good health insurance etc etc)
- runT1ME 10y ago
  Verizon Labs is scala, and (mostly) on the extreme functional side (heavy Scalaz). Scala/FP experience not required, but a willingness to learn is. Ping me if you want to chat more.
  - uhhuhuh 10y ago
    Is remote a possibility?
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  > I think there's basically a skunk works deal of Haskell at Facebook Their anti-spam group definitely uses it
- mej10 10y ago
  It isn't just a skunk works, they have a production system written in Haskell: https://code.facebook.com/posts/745068642270222/fighting-spam-with-haskell/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/745068642270222/fighting-spa...
- boothead 10y ago
  In SV (or there abouts) I know of: https://www.frontrowed.com/ https://www.frontrowed.com/ https://www.wagonhq.com/ https://www.wagonhq.com/ https://github.com/alphaHeavy https://github.com/alphaHeavy I'm sure there are others too.
njknsdf 10y ago
Even though Haskell is one of the less popular languages being used, just look at the online Haskell community vs the online Java community and it quickly becomes apparent that even a below-average Haskell programmer would be much more motivated and knowledgeable than the vast majority of Java programmers.
jlarocco 10y ago
> As a company in the lucky position of hiring for a Haskell role you have a pool of people who have self selected to be above average in determination and smarts [citation needed] There's really no evidence that people choosing Haskell are any smarter or more determined than anybody else. I'm mainly pointing this out because the Haskell community's "We're smarter than everybody" attitude is a big pet peeve of mine.
- zeta0134 10y ago
  I agree with your critique about the community attitude, so I sympathize with your position. However, speaking as a non-Haskell learner with a Haskell writing friend, I don't think it's fair to dismiss the notion entirely. Haskell is pure functional programming, and it's structure actively discourages a lot of the more common practices in iterative languages. I watched my friend struggle with a very simple web project for weeks while he was learning the language. At the end of it all though, when it finally came together and worked for the first time, he was confident about its behavior in a way I'm not sure I ever could be with the code I write regularly. (I'm a game programmer, so I write a lot of C++ and dabble in Python and Lua.) I think there's something to be said for the journey that Haskell necessarily takes you on. I don't think the upper skill ceiling for good Haskell developers is any higher than other languages, but the barrier for entry certainly seems to be.
  - tome 10y ago
    > I agree with your critique about the community attitude Please link to concrete examples of this. I'm genuinely interested in calling people out on such rudeness. The Haskell community has traditionally been modest and very welcoming and I'd like to keep it that way.
    - Retra 10y ago
      I've heard this before too, and I think a big part of it comes from the fact that people writing on Haskell aren't afraid to use mathematical terminology, and that comes off a snooty to most.
- 10y ago
kmiroslav 10y ago
> 2. Once you learn Haskell you really kind of want a Haskell job to put all this nice stuff into practice. Personally, not really. I enjoy dabbling with Haskell on my open source projects but doing so has made it abundantly clear why I would never want to use it on a production system, especially one I'm responsible for. Laziness making performance intractable, bad tooling (see the stack trace observation above), difficulties hiring Haskell programmers and the fact that while they can be good coders, they are usually very weak on the engineering side, etc... Both Haskell and Scala are on my list of languages that I love to experiment with on my free time but that I think are not ready for mission critical stuff. > you have a pool of people who have self selected to be above average in determination and smarts I hear this claim a lot from Haskell programmers but this has zero evidence. It's just a human thing to believe that your choices of technology make you better than people who made different choices.
- fpoling 10y ago
  I am curious what makes Scala in your opinion enterprise unready? It is the same JVM in the end and learning curve for a Java programmer is not that high.
  - Retra 10y ago
    I've learned a good number of languages, and Scala has been one of the most contrived, in my experience. Even for a Java developer.
- the_af 10y ago
  > Both Haskell and Scala are on my list of languages that I love to experiment with on my free time but that I think are not ready for mission critical stuff I find this curious, since both languages have been successfully used for mission critical stuff, and in particular Scala is deployed for mission-critical enterprise applications. At my day job, for example, but this is starting to look even more common, judging by the recruitment emails I get.
mands 10y ago
Agreed - we're a Haskell-based startup in London and have been utterly impressed at the developers we've met - not just in terms of their programming ability but also as engineers who are able to contribute as a team and work with us to build product according to specs/deadlines.
- denibertovic 10y ago
  Are you hiring remote folks?
denibertovic 10y ago
When you say hiring is never a problem? Does that mean you're hiring remote as well?

akavi 10y ago

> Built a Haskell team at a startup, now work on a Haskell team in finance. Hiring has NEVER been a problem. Mind sharing names?

0xmohit 10y ago
Standard Chartered is one. https://twitter.com/donsbot https://twitter.com/donsbot -- author of Real World Haskell See https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry https://wiki.haskell.org/Haskell_in_industry for more. Several other financial names including Bank of America Merril Lynch, Barclays Capital, Capital IQ, Credit Suisse, Tsuru Capital are listed.
- cm3 10y ago
  They even have their internal Haskell compiler which IIUC gets fed a dialect in order to have strict evaluation and a couple other non-standard properties. One nice thing the ecosystem got from their internal team is the official Shake implementation, which supersedes the various 3rd-party implementations and actually works really well. It even can interpret Ninja files, so it can be used in place of ninja when building things like Cmake-based projects or, say, Chromium. Not that there much of a reason to use Shake when you use Ninja, but you can and some of the reporting features might be exclusive to Shake. Usually you write a Shakefile.hs (instead of Makefile) and run it with shake.
kawera 10y ago
Places to spot then: https://jobs.functionalworks.com https://jobs.functionalworks.com https://functionaljobs.com/ https://functionaljobs.com/

Lewisham 10y ago

"Putting all this nice stuff into practice" is the kicker. I'd really like to do FP work, but I'm not willing to leave my current employer to do it. I think there's basically a skunk works deal of Haskell at Facebook, and F# for n programmers where n is basically unknown externally... and that's it. Am I missing someone that's a) in Silicon Valley b) mature enough that the benefits are there (such as always being paid on time, good health insurance etc etc)

runT1ME 10y ago
Verizon Labs is scala, and (mostly) on the extreme functional side (heavy Scalaz). Scala/FP experience not required, but a willingness to learn is. Ping me if you want to chat more.
- uhhuhuh 10y ago
  Is remote a possibility?
wlesieutre 10y ago
> I think there's basically a skunk works deal of Haskell at Facebook Their anti-spam group definitely uses it
mej10 10y ago
It isn't just a skunk works, they have a production system written in Haskell: https://code.facebook.com/posts/745068642270222/fighting-spam-with-haskell/ https://code.facebook.com/posts/745068642270222/fighting-spa...
boothead 10y ago
In SV (or there abouts) I know of: https://www.frontrowed.com/ https://www.frontrowed.com/ https://www.wagonhq.com/ https://www.wagonhq.com/ https://github.com/alphaHeavy https://github.com/alphaHeavy I'm sure there are others too.

njknsdf 10y ago

Even though Haskell is one of the less popular languages being used, just look at the online Haskell community vs the online Java community and it quickly becomes apparent that even a below-average Haskell programmer would be much more motivated and knowledgeable than the vast majority of Java programmers.

jlarocco 10y ago

> As a company in the lucky position of hiring for a Haskell role you have a pool of people who have self selected to be above average in determination and smarts [citation needed] There's really no evidence that people choosing Haskell are any smarter or more determined than anybody else. I'm mainly pointing this out because the Haskell community's "We're smarter than everybody" attitude is a big pet peeve of mine.

zeta0134 10y ago
I agree with your critique about the community attitude, so I sympathize with your position. However, speaking as a non-Haskell learner with a Haskell writing friend, I don't think it's fair to dismiss the notion entirely. Haskell is pure functional programming, and it's structure actively discourages a lot of the more common practices in iterative languages. I watched my friend struggle with a very simple web project for weeks while he was learning the language. At the end of it all though, when it finally came together and worked for the first time, he was confident about its behavior in a way I'm not sure I ever could be with the code I write regularly. (I'm a game programmer, so I write a lot of C++ and dabble in Python and Lua.) I think there's something to be said for the journey that Haskell necessarily takes you on. I don't think the upper skill ceiling for good Haskell developers is any higher than other languages, but the barrier for entry certainly seems to be.
- tome 10y ago
  > I agree with your critique about the community attitude Please link to concrete examples of this. I'm genuinely interested in calling people out on such rudeness. The Haskell community has traditionally been modest and very welcoming and I'd like to keep it that way.
  - Retra 10y ago
    I've heard this before too, and I think a big part of it comes from the fact that people writing on Haskell aren't afraid to use mathematical terminology, and that comes off a snooty to most.
10y ago

kmiroslav 10y ago

> 2. Once you learn Haskell you really kind of want a Haskell job to put all this nice stuff into practice. Personally, not really. I enjoy dabbling with Haskell on my open source projects but doing so has made it abundantly clear why I would never want to use it on a production system, especially one I'm responsible for. Laziness making performance intractable, bad tooling (see the stack trace observation above), difficulties hiring Haskell programmers and the fact that while they can be good coders, they are usually very weak on the engineering side, etc... Both Haskell and Scala are on my list of languages that I love to experiment with on my free time but that I think are not ready for mission critical stuff. > you have a pool of people who have self selected to be above average in determination and smarts I hear this claim a lot from Haskell programmers but this has zero evidence. It's just a human thing to believe that your choices of technology make you better than people who made different choices.

fpoling 10y ago
I am curious what makes Scala in your opinion enterprise unready? It is the same JVM in the end and learning curve for a Java programmer is not that high.
- Retra 10y ago
  I've learned a good number of languages, and Scala has been one of the most contrived, in my experience. Even for a Java developer.
the_af 10y ago
> Both Haskell and Scala are on my list of languages that I love to experiment with on my free time but that I think are not ready for mission critical stuff I find this curious, since both languages have been successfully used for mission critical stuff, and in particular Scala is deployed for mission-critical enterprise applications. At my day job, for example, but this is starting to look even more common, judging by the recruitment emails I get.

mands 10y ago

Agreed - we're a Haskell-based startup in London and have been utterly impressed at the developers we've met - not just in terms of their programming ability but also as engineers who are able to contribute as a team and work with us to build product according to specs/deadlines.

denibertovic 10y ago
Are you hiring remote folks?

denibertovic 10y ago

When you say hiring is never a problem? Does that mean you're hiring remote as well?