4 ms·

I've been to several dozen technology conferences the past two years and these folks show up with a fancy large booth and nice swag and I'm simply amazed at the

I've been to several dozen technology conferences the past two years and these folks show up with a fancy large booth and nice swag and I'm simply amazed at the presentation and effort they've put into this undertaking. My understanding is that the primary motivation all of this is consultancy work in India.

atarian 7y ago
It's a clever approach. Developers love to jump on new languages.
- jlg23 7y ago
  They do, this is why I would never bring a consultant on board who suggests a new language could solve the problems. Everybody loves it but after the easy 90% are done I am stuck with a niche language. Thus, I am not sure that this marketing does not backfire.
  - jamessteel 7y ago
    That is often true that one of the consultant I had could focus on solving some gaps and the overhead is too high. One of the primary reasons, we need a general purpose programming language focused on both "better developer experience" and "flexibility" that would cover almost all ecosystems.
sanjiva 7y ago
I'm the founder of WSO2 which developed Ballerina. Also the person who started the project and lead it. WSO2 is an enterprise software product company with 500+ customers in 70+ countries and 600 employees globally. We promoted Ballerina like that because we are proud of the work we do and wanted to show it off to people. You may not like the work we produce but trying to say its to get "consultancy work in India" is rather racist.
- tasuki 7y ago
  > I'm the founder of WSO2 which developed Ballerina. Also the person who started the project and lead it. Congrats and thank you! > We promoted Ballerina like that because we are proud of the work we do and wanted to show it off to people. And rightly proud! > You may not like the work we produce but trying to say its to get "consultancy work in India" is rather racist. Saying it's to get "consultancy work in India" might be wrong (you promote Ballerina because you're proud of your work), but I fail to see how it's racist. Even if it was true, it wouldn't be racist.
  - mindB 7y ago
    I think the racist bit might be assuming the primarily Sri Lankan company is from India.
    - dionian 7y ago
      that seems geographically/culturally ignorant rather than racist, but maybe i missed it
    - sanjiva 7y ago
      No, the racist bit is the implicit assumption that people in this part of the world can only do services and not creative technology development. We can do both, just like anyone else in any country.

atarian 7y ago

It's a clever approach. Developers love to jump on new languages.

jlg23 7y ago
They do, this is why I would never bring a consultant on board who suggests a new language could solve the problems. Everybody loves it but after the easy 90% are done I am stuck with a niche language. Thus, I am not sure that this marketing does not backfire.
- jamessteel 7y ago
  That is often true that one of the consultant I had could focus on solving some gaps and the overhead is too high. One of the primary reasons, we need a general purpose programming language focused on both "better developer experience" and "flexibility" that would cover almost all ecosystems.

sanjiva 7y ago

I'm the founder of WSO2 which developed Ballerina. Also the person who started the project and lead it. WSO2 is an enterprise software product company with 500+ customers in 70+ countries and 600 employees globally. We promoted Ballerina like that because we are proud of the work we do and wanted to show it off to people. You may not like the work we produce but trying to say its to get "consultancy work in India" is rather racist.

tasuki 7y ago
> I'm the founder of WSO2 which developed Ballerina. Also the person who started the project and lead it. Congrats and thank you! > We promoted Ballerina like that because we are proud of the work we do and wanted to show it off to people. And rightly proud! > You may not like the work we produce but trying to say its to get "consultancy work in India" is rather racist. Saying it's to get "consultancy work in India" might be wrong (you promote Ballerina because you're proud of your work), but I fail to see how it's racist. Even if it was true, it wouldn't be racist.
- mindB 7y ago
  I think the racist bit might be assuming the primarily Sri Lankan company is from India.
  - dionian 7y ago
    that seems geographically/culturally ignorant rather than racist, but maybe i missed it
  - sanjiva 7y ago
    No, the racist bit is the implicit assumption that people in this part of the world can only do services and not creative technology development. We can do both, just like anyone else in any country.