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Close I think - the best language to use is the one you will have the easiest time hiring good talent for. If you found a startup and all really love and are f

by munk-a 6y ago

Close I think - the best language to use is the one you will have the easiest time hiring good talent for. If you found a startup and all really love and are fluent in COBOL that's great but... good luck when it comes time to hire another employee.

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
This is strange to me because I’ve taken and succeeded at two positions now where I didn’t know the language going in.
- munk-a 6y ago
  I just wanted to clarify that I specifically called out how easy it is to hire for. A lot of developers are pretty quick when it comes to adapting to a new language and there are virtues that lean in favor of a language being easy to pickup: sharing a paradigm with popular language, sharing conventions with popular languages and good documentation. I have yet to work a day job in Rust, but I've worked in Java, C++ and Go so I'd be quite confident applying to a Rust position as long as it wasn't specifically security focused... I would be less confident in how quickly I could pickup Prolog - I think my brain works well for the nuances of the language but I'm less certain.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Yeah, this is why I’ve concentrated on learning different kinds of languages in my free time, rather than learning the latest thing: if I know Python, Ruby is relatively easy to learn but Haskell is more difficult. So, it’s worth my time to learn Haskell rather than Ruby.
nullsense 6y ago
That's making a bold assumption you get as far as hiring.
paxys 6y ago
If you have a good product new engineers will learn whatever language it is in. This very article is a perfect example. I'm sure Slack isn't hiring kids out of college with extensive PHP experience.
- acomjean 6y ago
  Php is pretty easy to pick up. We have way to many languages (Java ,Perl, php and python) A lot of interns end up using php(symfony). If they know Perl or Java they can pretty much jump right in. Python they take a little bit though not much more.
rjyoungling 6y ago
COBOL.. lol so spoiled. It's machine code or gtfo! /s

by munk-a 6y ago

fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago

This is strange to me because I’ve taken and succeeded at two positions now where I didn’t know the language going in.

munk-a 6y ago
I just wanted to clarify that I specifically called out how easy it is to hire for. A lot of developers are pretty quick when it comes to adapting to a new language and there are virtues that lean in favor of a language being easy to pickup: sharing a paradigm with popular language, sharing conventions with popular languages and good documentation. I have yet to work a day job in Rust, but I've worked in Java, C++ and Go so I'd be quite confident applying to a Rust position as long as it wasn't specifically security focused... I would be less confident in how quickly I could pickup Prolog - I think my brain works well for the nuances of the language but I'm less certain.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Yeah, this is why I’ve concentrated on learning different kinds of languages in my free time, rather than learning the latest thing: if I know Python, Ruby is relatively easy to learn but Haskell is more difficult. So, it’s worth my time to learn Haskell rather than Ruby.

nullsense 6y ago

That's making a bold assumption you get as far as hiring.

paxys 6y ago

If you have a good product new engineers will learn whatever language it is in. This very article is a perfect example. I'm sure Slack isn't hiring kids out of college with extensive PHP experience.

acomjean 6y ago
Php is pretty easy to pick up. We have way to many languages (Java ,Perl, php and python) A lot of interns end up using php(symfony). If they know Perl or Java they can pretty much jump right in. Python they take a little bit though not much more.

rjyoungling 6y ago

COBOL.. lol so spoiled. It's machine code or gtfo! /s