3 ms·

I think that the distinction isn't so much the language in use as the "quality" of the developer, and I think this distinction already exists - developers who l

by lemming 16y ago

I think that the distinction isn't so much the language in use as the "quality" of the developer, and I think this distinction already exists - developers who live and breathe this stuff already are way more productive and way more in demand than your average 9-to-5er. What does interest me is that it seems to me that there is already a two-tier system separated more along the type of work. I've met a few people recently who are consultants in quite esoteric things (compared to "standard") development - often things like IT consulting to companies working on more hard science problems like physics or chemistry/biochem, maybe machine learning these days, and they're frequently using functional or otherwise fringe languages. Similarly, I'm guessing people like Peter Siebel don't have any trouble finding work in lisp. I get the feeling there's sort of a subculture of really interesting work, often in interesting languages, that is just not accessible unless you're exposed to it somehow. Certainly I've never seen job ads for this sort of work. Any ideas about this? Is anyone out there actually consulting using Scala or Clojure? How did you get into it? How does it work - do you set the terms of the contract, such as which language you use? Any other experiences or opinions?

mark_l_watson 16y ago
A lot of my consulting in the last 9 months has been using Clojure and in the last 5 years I have had 1+ years of Common Lisp consulting work. That said, I don't think that language matters that much - I agree with your first comment. Personally, I don't care much if I develop in Lisp, Ruby, or Java when I help people since most customers request languages appropriate for what they want done.
- lemming 16y ago
  So when you used Clojure or Common Lisp was that because you got a greenfield project that only you were working on, or were they existing projects that were already using those languages? Again, not wanting to fixate too much on the language but it seems like as a consultant the toolset would normally be dictated by the project, i.e. if there's existing code, what it already uses, or if it's a new project who will be working on/maintaining it. Could you comment a bit on how you got into working like this? It's always interesting to hear how people get into working in things that are out of the norm.
  - mark_l_watson 16y ago
    For the Clojure project, that is what the customer had already started using. For the largest Common Lisp project, they asked me which language I wanted to use; later the project grew to a half dozen Lisp developers; now it is in maintenance mode with 2 or 3 developers. I wrote two Lisp + AI books for Springer-Verlag a long time ago so I think people associate me with Lisp use.

by lemming 16y ago

mark_l_watson 16y ago

A lot of my consulting in the last 9 months has been using Clojure and in the last 5 years I have had 1+ years of Common Lisp consulting work. That said, I don't think that language matters that much - I agree with your first comment. Personally, I don't care much if I develop in Lisp, Ruby, or Java when I help people since most customers request languages appropriate for what they want done.

lemming 16y ago
So when you used Clojure or Common Lisp was that because you got a greenfield project that only you were working on, or were they existing projects that were already using those languages? Again, not wanting to fixate too much on the language but it seems like as a consultant the toolset would normally be dictated by the project, i.e. if there's existing code, what it already uses, or if it's a new project who will be working on/maintaining it. Could you comment a bit on how you got into working like this? It's always interesting to hear how people get into working in things that are out of the norm.
- mark_l_watson 16y ago
  For the Clojure project, that is what the customer had already started using. For the largest Common Lisp project, they asked me which language I wanted to use; later the project grew to a half dozen Lisp developers; now it is in maintenance mode with 2 or 3 developers. I wrote two Lisp + AI books for Springer-Verlag a long time ago so I think people associate me with Lisp use.