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I don't like to shy away from languages just because they won't ever become one of the top 5 languages. Moderate success for a language can often be more than e

I don't like to shy away from languages just because they won't ever become one of the top 5 languages. Moderate success for a language can often be more than enough to keep the things built on it afloat for a long time. I also suspect that the relationship between how many people are successfully using a language, and how often you hear about it on the Internet, is non-linear. And most the popular rankings (TIOBE, SO developer survey, etc) are really measuring how often you hear about it on the Internet. For me, the real killer feature that every language must have is an escape hatch. This is every bit as true of AAA languages as it is of up-and-coming ones. Give me a way to expose a C ABI or a COM interface, and I'll feel more confident I won't get trapped. (Though I still cry myself to sleep at night knowing POSIX doesn't have a great answer to COM or WinRT.) For one project I'm working on, I'm currently feeling very trapped in Java, of all things. Because, while Java has decent enough facilities for calling out, it's much more difficult/expensive/both to call into Java from other platforms.

danielbarla 6y ago
I totally agree with you, when it comes to my own personal projects. (In fact, the number of languages I have relatively seriously dabbled in is getting to the point that it's best to leave off a CV, lest one comes off as a jack-of-all-trades or something.) But for companies, it's pretty hard to put together 3-4 teams of developers in some esoteric language. And to find developers for it many years down the line for maintenance. So, they understandably stick to mainstream stuff, even if there are significant inherent advantages to something off the beaten bush.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  My sense is that that is unnecessarily self-inflicted. Companies' focus on hiring people who already know the language they use is penny wise and pound foolish. Even if a new developer is a complete novice at a language, I would still expect that to be less effort than learning the business domain, getting to know the codebase, and socially integrating oneself with the team.

danielbarla 6y ago

I totally agree with you, when it comes to my own personal projects. (In fact, the number of languages I have relatively seriously dabbled in is getting to the point that it's best to leave off a CV, lest one comes off as a jack-of-all-trades or something.) But for companies, it's pretty hard to put together 3-4 teams of developers in some esoteric language. And to find developers for it many years down the line for maintenance. So, they understandably stick to mainstream stuff, even if there are significant inherent advantages to something off the beaten bush.

mumblemumble 6y ago
My sense is that that is unnecessarily self-inflicted. Companies' focus on hiring people who already know the language they use is penny wise and pound foolish. Even if a new developer is a complete novice at a language, I would still expect that to be less effort than learning the business domain, getting to know the codebase, and socially integrating oneself with the team.