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What if the project became popular, scaled up and the original developer needed help with it? As Haskell is a niche language, wouldn't it be harder to find Hask

What if the project became popular, scaled up and the original developer needed help with it? As Haskell is a niche language, wouldn't it be harder to find Haskell developers to come on board?

Vosporos 6y ago
This would mean that whatever the level of the contributors, it would be harder to ship bugs in production.
izgzhen 6y ago
I guess if the business idea really took off, then it doesn't really matter what language is this part of logic written in -- you can already wrap it in as a service with Web API -- or simply rewrote it in another more popular language.
- The_rationalist 6y ago
  Not all startups bring big VC money, for the real world a full rewrite of your stack usually cost too much to be viable.
_query 6y ago
Our company is also using a lot of haskell for our projects. Since we adopted haskell we had a lot more very talented developers apply. I think this only might be a problem if you don't want to hire remote.
dgellow 6y ago
Yes, it is harder to find developers for niche languages and technologies. On the other hand you have a pool of enthusiasts looking for the opportunity to use something more niche, like Haskell.
- cies 6y ago
  This argument + response keep coming up. If a niche language could never pick up steam we'd still be stuck with assembly. All languages started off as niche. It's more interesting what constitutes niche, AND as the parent notes what constitutes a "language to have enthousiasm for". VB, JScript, ActionScript, ColdFusion and BASIC are all niche (nowadays), but without enthusiasm its not interesting. Besides the niche-enthusiasm, there is also something for "usefulness". Haskell+ecosystem (and others in the FP camp) bring a nice set of features to the table not often found in other languages.
  - that_guy_iain 6y ago
    > This argument + response keep coming up. If a niche language could never pick up steam we'd still be stuck with assembly. All languages started off as niche. No they didn't all start off as a niche. They started off with a small user base of early adopters. Haskell is a niche because it's been around long enough to pick up users. There is a difference between a new language with a small number of early adopters and a niche language that has been around for decades. And languages like Swift did not start off small.
    - cies 6y ago
      You're right. A niche is not built in a day.
  - jcelerier 6y ago
    > All languages started off as niche. definitely not. Java was presented at SunWorld. When C# came out there were ads in computer programming zines. Swift came out on a wide concert stage with most of the Apple community having their eyes riveted on the video stream: https://youtu.be/MO7Ta0DvEWA?t=45 https://youtu.be/MO7Ta0DvEWA?t=45 All that ensures that the "critical mass" adoption to get the language out of niche status would be a non-issue
    - cies 6y ago
      Even those languages start off with a small user base, right? And some return to small user bases :) I think the number of VB programmers has drop to level below Haskell nowadays.
seddona 6y ago
Our startup runs on Haskell. I was worried about this initially but in practice finding great Haskell developers has been no more or less difficult than finding great developers in general.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  Yeah, finding a decent Javascript or C++ developer is actually very difficult - everyone thinks they know C++ and Javascript when in fact only a small minority actually do.
MadeThisToReply 6y ago
I don't know about Haskell specifically, but the question isn't "how many developers are able and willing to work with $language?" but "how many developers are able and willing to work with $language relative to the number of companies hiring for it?". For example, Elm is still a tiny, niche language, but from what I hear it's relatively easy to hire for Elm because there are many more people who want to work with it than there are companies that are hiring for it.
zumu 6y ago
The talent pool is probably smaller, but passionate. It's many people's dream to write Haskell (or other FP) for a living, myself included. If I may shill, if anyone is hiring for Haskell or FP roles, please let me know.
- exdsq 6y ago
  IOHK are, and have some fairly team members in the Haskell community :) https://apply.workable.com/io-global/ https://apply.workable.com/io-global/ https://iohk.io/en/team/ https://iohk.io/en/team/
- _query 6y ago
  At digitally induced we're always looking for great developers to add to our haskell team: https://www.digitallyinduced.com/JobPositions https://www.digitallyinduced.com/JobPositions :)
agentultra 6y ago
In my experience, no. There are probably more people who use Haskell or want to use Haskell as their main language than there are job openings to work on a Haskell code base. If you're willing to work with a remote team your inbox will probably never sit empty.

What if the project became popular, scaled up and the original developer needed help with it? As Haskell is a niche language, wouldn't it be harder to find Haskell developers to come on board?

Vosporos 6y ago

This would mean that whatever the level of the contributors, it would be harder to ship bugs in production.

izgzhen 6y ago

I guess if the business idea really took off, then it doesn't really matter what language is this part of logic written in -- you can already wrap it in as a service with Web API -- or simply rewrote it in another more popular language.

The_rationalist 6y ago
Not all startups bring big VC money, for the real world a full rewrite of your stack usually cost too much to be viable.

_query 6y ago

Our company is also using a lot of haskell for our projects. Since we adopted haskell we had a lot more very talented developers apply. I think this only might be a problem if you don't want to hire remote.

dgellow 6y ago

Yes, it is harder to find developers for niche languages and technologies. On the other hand you have a pool of enthusiasts looking for the opportunity to use something more niche, like Haskell.

cies 6y ago
This argument + response keep coming up. If a niche language could never pick up steam we'd still be stuck with assembly. All languages started off as niche. It's more interesting what constitutes niche, AND as the parent notes what constitutes a "language to have enthousiasm for". VB, JScript, ActionScript, ColdFusion and BASIC are all niche (nowadays), but without enthusiasm its not interesting. Besides the niche-enthusiasm, there is also something for "usefulness". Haskell+ecosystem (and others in the FP camp) bring a nice set of features to the table not often found in other languages.
- that_guy_iain 6y ago
  > This argument + response keep coming up. If a niche language could never pick up steam we'd still be stuck with assembly. All languages started off as niche. No they didn't all start off as a niche. They started off with a small user base of early adopters. Haskell is a niche because it's been around long enough to pick up users. There is a difference between a new language with a small number of early adopters and a niche language that has been around for decades. And languages like Swift did not start off small.
  - cies 6y ago
    You're right. A niche is not built in a day.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > All languages started off as niche. definitely not. Java was presented at SunWorld. When C# came out there were ads in computer programming zines. Swift came out on a wide concert stage with most of the Apple community having their eyes riveted on the video stream: https://youtu.be/MO7Ta0DvEWA?t=45 https://youtu.be/MO7Ta0DvEWA?t=45 All that ensures that the "critical mass" adoption to get the language out of niche status would be a non-issue
  - cies 6y ago
    Even those languages start off with a small user base, right? And some return to small user bases :) I think the number of VB programmers has drop to level below Haskell nowadays.

seddona 6y ago

Our startup runs on Haskell. I was worried about this initially but in practice finding great Haskell developers has been no more or less difficult than finding great developers in general.

otabdeveloper4 6y ago
Yeah, finding a decent Javascript or C++ developer is actually very difficult - everyone thinks they know C++ and Javascript when in fact only a small minority actually do.

MadeThisToReply 6y ago

I don't know about Haskell specifically, but the question isn't "how many developers are able and willing to work with $language?" but "how many developers are able and willing to work with $language relative to the number of companies hiring for it?". For example, Elm is still a tiny, niche language, but from what I hear it's relatively easy to hire for Elm because there are many more people who want to work with it than there are companies that are hiring for it.

zumu 6y ago

The talent pool is probably smaller, but passionate. It's many people's dream to write Haskell (or other FP) for a living, myself included. If I may shill, if anyone is hiring for Haskell or FP roles, please let me know.

exdsq 6y ago
IOHK are, and have some fairly team members in the Haskell community :) https://apply.workable.com/io-global/ https://apply.workable.com/io-global/ https://iohk.io/en/team/ https://iohk.io/en/team/
_query 6y ago
At digitally induced we're always looking for great developers to add to our haskell team: https://www.digitallyinduced.com/JobPositions https://www.digitallyinduced.com/JobPositions :)

agentultra 6y ago

In my experience, no. There are probably more people who use Haskell or want to use Haskell as their main language than there are job openings to work on a Haskell code base. If you're willing to work with a remote team your inbox will probably never sit empty.