6 ms·

... and went bankrupt because of not being able to finding Engineers.

by kamyarg 8y ago

detaro 8y ago
Developers can learn new languages though if a company lets them. (Edited to be less glib. bad habit)
- oblio 8y ago
  A friend (C# dev) just refused a job from a company in the Netherlands, for a D dev position. I don't know if it's the same company. It's not that they're not capable, but some will not want to risk several years of their career to learn it.
  - cakes 8y ago
    I can understand this. If I had to pick a marketable/future employment language today, I would pick C# over D (I have used both).
  - blub 8y ago
    And did they refuse the job because of D, low salary, not wanting to move to the Netherlands or some other reason? I could see a C++ dev giving this a try without hurting their career prospects, but C# devs are not exactly known for trying out non-mainstream technologies. If they switch for a couple of years MS will pump out a couple of frameworks and .NET programming languages. Fire and motion as such.
    - oblio 8y ago
      He wants to move to the Netherlands and he was quite explicit that he's apprehensive about D. It's true that C# programmers generally don't venture outside the mainstream.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
  - abiox 8y ago
    honestly, if i were hiring and heard this of an applicant (and didn't have reason to believe it was something else like salary), i would feel that we dodged a bullet. (that may not be entirely fair, i guess i just tend to be skeptical of people who get hung up on languages.)
    - oblio 8y ago
      I don’t agree with you. Provided you’d persuade him that the company and tech are worth it, I think he’d be a good addition to most companies. It’s a legit concern.
- david-cako 8y ago
  I agree, but that costs money for the company and time for the developer. Airbnb dropping react native due to a lack of qualified candidates that were articulate in both the native and javascript realm is a great example. Something can work flawlessly with the right conditions (for instance, developers that understand and can implement the path of least resistance across native and react), yet if its prohibitive to create those conditions you are back where you started. If the dominant ideology among developers is that learning X language or technology costs more of their career than its worth, it dies out. Same goes for the company and their resources.
  - macintux 8y ago
    I'm skeptical about extrapolating too much from a JavaScript example. That ecosystem looks nothing like the rest of the software development world. Erlang has been around in a niche role for >30 years and still going strong, even stronger now that Elixir has reinvigorated interest in the platform.
    - david-cako 8y ago
      My only point in that you should be as careful about creating problems building a team and adding ramp-up time to your product when you attempt to optimize. It's a decision that doesn't go away without lots of heartburn and having employees lose morale rewriting their own work.
  - acehreli 8y ago
    > but that costs money for the company and time for the developer Quite the opposite: The new tool saves time and money. Airbnb example just shows that one should not jump on the newest thing on the market.
  - blub 8y ago
    According to their own blog, they dropped react because it was a difficult to use piece of technology that was slowing them down and making it difficult to offer a top notch mobile experience. Yes, they also had difficulties hiring devs which know both native and react, but that's normal. Most mobile devs wouldn't touch react.
macintux 8y ago
...which is why we’re all still programming COBOL, Fortran, and LISP.
- protocode 8y ago
  Nothing wrong with the languages you mentioned; they do what they do best. COBOL and Fortran are both fantastic and nothing yet truly replaces them. COBOL is accurate out to 38 digits, which is amazing for such an "old" language. Banks still like their COBOL and it just works. No stupid "libraries and/or frameworks of the month" to worry about, it compiles cleanly and every time, and it's easy to write and maintain. Modern doesn't always mean best. I still write tons of stuff in sh. If it's under 100 lines, it's shell, awk, or similar. COBOL and Fortran still have tons of life left in them. Every time someone undertakes a massive project to replace COBOL in the financial sector (usually driven by a latte-sipping hipster and his recently graduated ilk), it goes pear shaped. We still use hammers. They work.
  - macintux 8y ago
    I have nothing against any of them, I just was surprised anyone thinks that a new(ish) language can't find engineers to use it.
    - protocode 8y ago
      From my admittedly cursory look at D, I find nothing persuasive enough to get me to take it on and learn it when the chances of my ever using it are slim. I guess I'm just old school. It seems that every week there is a new language, framework, etc., and most of them are really not doing anything radically different. As a back end guy, I see most of the churn happens in the web dev world. I prefer old, stable, and very little churn, hence my continued love for COBOL in particular. I also like C++ and Python, but there is something fantastic about COBOL, sh, and awk, which are oft-used. I'm getting less and less enthusiastic about systems stuff now that I'm getting older and more into writing useful tools to help my guys. Call it an easy exit...
cpburns2009 8y ago
Ideally, the company switching to D wouldn't affect their current or future engineers at all unless some of the engineers are also programmers.
walshemj 8y ago
Just tell your new hires here is a book on the language go learn it - which is what I was told at my first Job (world leading RnD).
- oh-kumudo 8y ago
  I am usually not against learning new stuff. But I would also like my learning from current work generalize to my future career. From a pragmatic perspective, learning D is probably going to have less ROI. Either the company focus solely on finding enthusiasts or they pay the premium to overcome this.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    True up to a point but any professional developer needs to be able to pick up a new language quickly - I had to learn Pl/1G to work on a Map reduce code base. I was assuming a more rational choice but then developing serious technical software in pascal instead of fortran in the 80's was not a rational choice in the first place.
acehreli 8y ago
Patently false and disservice to software engineering. There are many companies (e.g. Weka.IO, Sociomantic, etc.) that hire C++ developers and have them happily write D code. I did work at Weka.IO for a while and never met a single D programmer that was unhappy. Ali Çehreli
- grawprog 8y ago
  I really enjoy programming in D and your book taught me a lot and made the more complicated aspects easy to understand. I still go back to it for things that are kind of convoluted in the official docs. Learning D taught me so much more about programming and thanks to D I was able to learn and understand C after years of trying. I've even started learning assembly with D by implementing my own virtual machine and assembler. My experience with the D community has been positive and people have been more than willing to help with problems or explaining quirks with Phobos or the D compiler.

... and went bankrupt because of not being able to finding Engineers.

detaro 8y ago

Developers can learn new languages though if a company lets them. (Edited to be less glib. bad habit)

oblio 8y ago
A friend (C# dev) just refused a job from a company in the Netherlands, for a D dev position. I don't know if it's the same company. It's not that they're not capable, but some will not want to risk several years of their career to learn it.
- cakes 8y ago
  I can understand this. If I had to pick a marketable/future employment language today, I would pick C# over D (I have used both).
- blub 8y ago
  And did they refuse the job because of D, low salary, not wanting to move to the Netherlands or some other reason? I could see a C++ dev giving this a try without hurting their career prospects, but C# devs are not exactly known for trying out non-mainstream technologies. If they switch for a couple of years MS will pump out a couple of frameworks and .NET programming languages. Fire and motion as such.
  - oblio 8y ago
    He wants to move to the Netherlands and he was quite explicit that he's apprehensive about D. It's true that C# programmers generally don't venture outside the mainstream.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- abiox 8y ago
  honestly, if i were hiring and heard this of an applicant (and didn't have reason to believe it was something else like salary), i would feel that we dodged a bullet. (that may not be entirely fair, i guess i just tend to be skeptical of people who get hung up on languages.)
  - oblio 8y ago
    I don’t agree with you. Provided you’d persuade him that the company and tech are worth it, I think he’d be a good addition to most companies. It’s a legit concern.
david-cako 8y ago
I agree, but that costs money for the company and time for the developer. Airbnb dropping react native due to a lack of qualified candidates that were articulate in both the native and javascript realm is a great example. Something can work flawlessly with the right conditions (for instance, developers that understand and can implement the path of least resistance across native and react), yet if its prohibitive to create those conditions you are back where you started. If the dominant ideology among developers is that learning X language or technology costs more of their career than its worth, it dies out. Same goes for the company and their resources.
- macintux 8y ago
  I'm skeptical about extrapolating too much from a JavaScript example. That ecosystem looks nothing like the rest of the software development world. Erlang has been around in a niche role for >30 years and still going strong, even stronger now that Elixir has reinvigorated interest in the platform.
  - david-cako 8y ago
    My only point in that you should be as careful about creating problems building a team and adding ramp-up time to your product when you attempt to optimize. It's a decision that doesn't go away without lots of heartburn and having employees lose morale rewriting their own work.
- acehreli 8y ago
  > but that costs money for the company and time for the developer Quite the opposite: The new tool saves time and money. Airbnb example just shows that one should not jump on the newest thing on the market.
- blub 8y ago
  According to their own blog, they dropped react because it was a difficult to use piece of technology that was slowing them down and making it difficult to offer a top notch mobile experience. Yes, they also had difficulties hiring devs which know both native and react, but that's normal. Most mobile devs wouldn't touch react.

macintux 8y ago

...which is why we’re all still programming COBOL, Fortran, and LISP.

protocode 8y ago
Nothing wrong with the languages you mentioned; they do what they do best. COBOL and Fortran are both fantastic and nothing yet truly replaces them. COBOL is accurate out to 38 digits, which is amazing for such an "old" language. Banks still like their COBOL and it just works. No stupid "libraries and/or frameworks of the month" to worry about, it compiles cleanly and every time, and it's easy to write and maintain. Modern doesn't always mean best. I still write tons of stuff in sh. If it's under 100 lines, it's shell, awk, or similar. COBOL and Fortran still have tons of life left in them. Every time someone undertakes a massive project to replace COBOL in the financial sector (usually driven by a latte-sipping hipster and his recently graduated ilk), it goes pear shaped. We still use hammers. They work.
- macintux 8y ago
  I have nothing against any of them, I just was surprised anyone thinks that a new(ish) language can't find engineers to use it.
  - protocode 8y ago
    From my admittedly cursory look at D, I find nothing persuasive enough to get me to take it on and learn it when the chances of my ever using it are slim. I guess I'm just old school. It seems that every week there is a new language, framework, etc., and most of them are really not doing anything radically different. As a back end guy, I see most of the churn happens in the web dev world. I prefer old, stable, and very little churn, hence my continued love for COBOL in particular. I also like C++ and Python, but there is something fantastic about COBOL, sh, and awk, which are oft-used. I'm getting less and less enthusiastic about systems stuff now that I'm getting older and more into writing useful tools to help my guys. Call it an easy exit...

cpburns2009 8y ago

Ideally, the company switching to D wouldn't affect their current or future engineers at all unless some of the engineers are also programmers.

walshemj 8y ago

Just tell your new hires here is a book on the language go learn it - which is what I was told at my first Job (world leading RnD).

oh-kumudo 8y ago
I am usually not against learning new stuff. But I would also like my learning from current work generalize to my future career. From a pragmatic perspective, learning D is probably going to have less ROI. Either the company focus solely on finding enthusiasts or they pay the premium to overcome this.
- walshemj 8y ago
  True up to a point but any professional developer needs to be able to pick up a new language quickly - I had to learn Pl/1G to work on a Map reduce code base. I was assuming a more rational choice but then developing serious technical software in pascal instead of fortran in the 80's was not a rational choice in the first place.

acehreli 8y ago

Patently false and disservice to software engineering. There are many companies (e.g. Weka.IO, Sociomantic, etc.) that hire C++ developers and have them happily write D code. I did work at Weka.IO for a while and never met a single D programmer that was unhappy. Ali Çehreli

grawprog 8y ago
I really enjoy programming in D and your book taught me a lot and made the more complicated aspects easy to understand. I still go back to it for things that are kind of convoluted in the official docs. Learning D taught me so much more about programming and thanks to D I was able to learn and understand C after years of trying. I've even started learning assembly with D by implementing my own virtual machine and assembler. My experience with the D community has been positive and people have been more than willing to help with problems or explaining quirks with Phobos or the D compiler.