11 ms·

Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" Is keeping the programming languages your company uses a secret something people assume by default? Now I just feel

by Joe-Z 8y ago

Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" Is keeping the programming languages your company uses a secret something people assume by default? Now I just feel stupid for working mostly in Java. (It's handy and it works. Leave me alone, okay!)

jaabe 8y ago
We keep a large part of our stack secret. Not for competitive reasons, but because people around here assumes the only two “serious” programming languages are JAVA and C#. We did use C# for two decades so it’s not completely a lie when we tell people it’s our main language, but it’s still a little silly to lie about it.
- minton 8y ago
  It is the same way in my industry. C#, Java, MSSQL are “good” because executives have heard of them. Whereas Ruby, Elixir, Postgres, etc are “toys” because they’ve never heard of them.
- fetbaffe 8y ago
  Language snobbism is the worst.
- Redoubts 8y ago
  But what if I want to work in $boring_sector using $cool_stack, how do I find you?
  - jaabe 8y ago
    We find you. It’s much cheaper to pay a hiring agency than to sit through hundreds of applicants who aren’t what we’re looking for.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Early C# and contemporaneous Java were virtually copy-and-paste identical. Even today I would put them in the same bucket when classifying languages. Though I haven't used either in many years.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    It was even funnier than that - they were very similar on conceptual level, but with trivial gratuitous syntax differences - e.g. "sealed" instead of "final", or "base" instead of "super".
sokoloff 8y ago
He would ask if he could tell people in order to preserve his position as a trusted expert and trustworthy "front man" of Erlang. Suppose he didn't ask and just blabbed away? The trust he's developed over the years would be substantially marred. ("Don't tell Joe anything you don't want to show up on Twitter...") Do I think keeping your tech stack secret is super important or that that secrecy itself is a competitive advantage? Hell no! Do I think it's still your call to decide what you disclose publicly? Of course.
- Joe-Z 8y ago
  Thank you for your answer. I didn‘t know his role, so for me it was just „some programming guy“.
matt2000 8y ago
Don't feel stupid, I like Java too! Java is a memory safe language with a great standard library and amazing language stability that runs on all platforms and beats almost all other languages on performance. Seems pretty good to me! HN is a very skewed place that's into some very niche stuff. That can be fine, it's good to be interested in new things, but no one should draw too many conclusions from trends we see on here. Just to poke a few HN bears by way of example: * Rust will never see widespread adoption. It's just hard and complicated, so seems cool and exclusive. * Lisp isn't gonna happen either, and that's because it's not even a good choice for most problems. It just feels really really cool when you write something in a purely functional way and so you imagine that _must_ mean this is some higher plane of existence. Not really, we've had 30-40 years for this thing to take off, not happening. * Even Erlang, while really cool, is just a super niche thing. If you're making a huge messaging service then definitely go for it, but you're making a website? Choose pretty much anything else. There's a lot of reasons for all of the above (low average amount of experience leading to long term memory loss for the industry being the big one), but this comment is too long already and everyone's just going to be mad about the Rust stuff anyway.
- ulkesh 8y ago
  I adore Java! It has been a skill I’ve used at a few jobs now and I wouldn’t want to do anything else. If people get upset about your opinions, then that’s their problem.
  - GorgeRonde 8y ago
    Most people who have durably coded in java and say, Haskell or a Lisp (as I have) or any other trending language on HN will prefer the latter. Knowing that (as I did) why not expand your horizon (as I did) ?
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      I don't see how you could possibly state that conclusively. What leads you to believe most Java programmers would prefer Haskell or some flavor of Lisp? You're saying that people who spend time in both will prefer the latter, but it seems equally plausible that people wouldn't spend time in both because they don't like the latter.
yumraj 8y ago
I have worked in numerous languages, all the way from C, C++ to Java, C#, JavaScript, Python, and some go and Elixir. And, one thing I have noted is that Java programmers are the most conservative when it comes to picking, learning, using other languages. Part of the reason is that if you're in the Java ecosystem, you can be very comfortable as it gives good performance, great mature tooling and libraries for almost anything under the Sun - so why would you want to leave it. And, there is enough demand that you'll be reasonably employed for a long time. Which in itself is a reasonable argument, nothing wrong with it. But, on the flip side, if you want to grow as a computer scientist/engineer it is always good to look outside and broaden your horizons.
- Insanity 8y ago
  Working in a company where a transition away from Java is happening at the moment, in favour of other languages (mainly Go, partly Python) I can confirm at least the resistance from the people who mainly did Java in their carreer, compared to people who also wrote different languages. Of course, it might also be because people who have worked in a variety of languages are already 'used' to learning a new language.
  - erik_seaberg 8y ago
    I'm excited about languages where being smarter pays off in clarity. Java isn't great but Go avoided any of the improvements I'd like to see.
    - fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
      Go seems intent on relearning all the lessons of Java: e.g. you can’t have a useful statically typed collection library without generics.
coldtea 8y ago
>Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" Because irrespective to if they want to keep their language secret or not, they might not want to be featured in Elixir's homepage, or have any of the other information they shared in a private message go public.
yawaramin 8y ago
> Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" I'm not sure he did. His tweets say: > However, I can't say who it is because they asked me not to tell anyone they're using Elixir. And: > ... we don't want or competitors to have, so please keep this inquiry private. So in fact they might have just asked him to keep it quiet without him even asking about it.

by Joe-Z 8y ago

jaabe 8y ago

We keep a large part of our stack secret. Not for competitive reasons, but because people around here assumes the only two “serious” programming languages are JAVA and C#. We did use C# for two decades so it’s not completely a lie when we tell people it’s our main language, but it’s still a little silly to lie about it.

minton 8y ago
It is the same way in my industry. C#, Java, MSSQL are “good” because executives have heard of them. Whereas Ruby, Elixir, Postgres, etc are “toys” because they’ve never heard of them.
fetbaffe 8y ago
Language snobbism is the worst.
Redoubts 8y ago
But what if I want to work in $boring_sector using $cool_stack, how do I find you?
- jaabe 8y ago
  We find you. It’s much cheaper to pay a hiring agency than to sit through hundreds of applicants who aren’t what we’re looking for.
ams6110 8y ago
Early C# and contemporaneous Java were virtually copy-and-paste identical. Even today I would put them in the same bucket when classifying languages. Though I haven't used either in many years.
- int_19h 8y ago
  It was even funnier than that - they were very similar on conceptual level, but with trivial gratuitous syntax differences - e.g. "sealed" instead of "final", or "base" instead of "super".

sokoloff 8y ago

He would ask if he could tell people in order to preserve his position as a trusted expert and trustworthy "front man" of Erlang. Suppose he didn't ask and just blabbed away? The trust he's developed over the years would be substantially marred. ("Don't tell Joe anything you don't want to show up on Twitter...") Do I think keeping your tech stack secret is super important or that that secrecy itself is a competitive advantage? Hell no! Do I think it's still your call to decide what you disclose publicly? Of course.

Joe-Z 8y ago
Thank you for your answer. I didn‘t know his role, so for me it was just „some programming guy“.

matt2000 8y ago

Don't feel stupid, I like Java too! Java is a memory safe language with a great standard library and amazing language stability that runs on all platforms and beats almost all other languages on performance. Seems pretty good to me! HN is a very skewed place that's into some very niche stuff. That can be fine, it's good to be interested in new things, but no one should draw too many conclusions from trends we see on here. Just to poke a few HN bears by way of example: * Rust will never see widespread adoption. It's just hard and complicated, so seems cool and exclusive. * Lisp isn't gonna happen either, and that's because it's not even a good choice for most problems. It just feels really really cool when you write something in a purely functional way and so you imagine that _must_ mean this is some higher plane of existence. Not really, we've had 30-40 years for this thing to take off, not happening. * Even Erlang, while really cool, is just a super niche thing. If you're making a huge messaging service then definitely go for it, but you're making a website? Choose pretty much anything else. There's a lot of reasons for all of the above (low average amount of experience leading to long term memory loss for the industry being the big one), but this comment is too long already and everyone's just going to be mad about the Rust stuff anyway.

ulkesh 8y ago
I adore Java! It has been a skill I’ve used at a few jobs now and I wouldn’t want to do anything else. If people get upset about your opinions, then that’s their problem.
- GorgeRonde 8y ago
  Most people who have durably coded in java and say, Haskell or a Lisp (as I have) or any other trending language on HN will prefer the latter. Knowing that (as I did) why not expand your horizon (as I did) ?
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    I don't see how you could possibly state that conclusively. What leads you to believe most Java programmers would prefer Haskell or some flavor of Lisp? You're saying that people who spend time in both will prefer the latter, but it seems equally plausible that people wouldn't spend time in both because they don't like the latter.

yumraj 8y ago

I have worked in numerous languages, all the way from C, C++ to Java, C#, JavaScript, Python, and some go and Elixir. And, one thing I have noted is that Java programmers are the most conservative when it comes to picking, learning, using other languages. Part of the reason is that if you're in the Java ecosystem, you can be very comfortable as it gives good performance, great mature tooling and libraries for almost anything under the Sun - so why would you want to leave it. And, there is enough demand that you'll be reasonably employed for a long time. Which in itself is a reasonable argument, nothing wrong with it. But, on the flip side, if you want to grow as a computer scientist/engineer it is always good to look outside and broaden your horizons.

Insanity 8y ago
Working in a company where a transition away from Java is happening at the moment, in favour of other languages (mainly Go, partly Python) I can confirm at least the resistance from the people who mainly did Java in their carreer, compared to people who also wrote different languages. Of course, it might also be because people who have worked in a variety of languages are already 'used' to learning a new language.
- erik_seaberg 8y ago
  I'm excited about languages where being smarter pays off in clarity. Java isn't great but Go avoided any of the improvements I'd like to see.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
    Go seems intent on relearning all the lessons of Java: e.g. you can’t have a useful statically typed collection library without generics.

coldtea 8y ago

>Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" Because irrespective to if they want to keep their language secret or not, they might not want to be featured in Elixir's homepage, or have any of the other information they shared in a private message go public.

yawaramin 8y ago

> Why would he even ask "can we tell people?" I'm not sure he did. His tweets say: > However, I can't say who it is because they asked me not to tell anyone they're using Elixir. And: > ... we don't want or competitors to have, so please keep this inquiry private. So in fact they might have just asked him to keep it quiet without him even asking about it.