4 ms·

> Yet people seem to focus on the technology, because that's more easily replicated, and easier to accept, in my opinion. I think you are correct. It also work

> Yet people seem to focus on the technology, because that's more easily replicated, and easier to accept, in my opinion. I think you are correct. It also works as some sort of advertisement. Others feel like they made the right tech choices, if they choose the same tech as WhatsApp or Spotify. Completely forgetting that they probably need to be somewhat proficient in Erlang to get the benefits from the language etc. I guess that "hire extremely good developers" is less sexy than just choose Rust/Erlang etc...

emerongi 5y ago
Language choice does act as a filter, though. If you choose Erlang, do you get smarter developers by default?
- bjarneh 5y ago
  From my experience it's always a good idea to choose a language that people would have to learn by themselves, i.e. none of the school languages (Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Javascript etc). In that way you only attract people who do sit down and learn new languages by themselves in their spare time, which filters out people with less interest in programming at least.
- dgb23 5y ago
  Smarter? I think that's too broad. But if you choose technology for its intrinsic merits you attract engineers with taste, who have the drive and luxury to care about their work on a different level. There are plenty more people who can't be arsed to or don't have the time or simply don't find it valuable enough to adopt "niche" technology, despite technical merits. I don't think it has anything to do with smarts, but rather with priorities and human nature. Most people follow the mainstream because they favor stability and convention, those who break out in different directions favor autonomy and freedom.
WJW 5y ago
It's not just less sexy, it leads to frustrated readers/viewers of your article/blog post/conference talk etc. If someone asked how to build a better system for their company and the answer they got was "first spend 5-10 years becoming a better programmer", they will be less happy than if you sell them on the idea that adopting Rust/Erlang/etc will magically make the hard task easier.

emerongi 5y ago

Language choice does act as a filter, though. If you choose Erlang, do you get smarter developers by default?

bjarneh 5y ago
From my experience it's always a good idea to choose a language that people would have to learn by themselves, i.e. none of the school languages (Java, C, C++, C#, Python, Javascript etc). In that way you only attract people who do sit down and learn new languages by themselves in their spare time, which filters out people with less interest in programming at least.
dgb23 5y ago
Smarter? I think that's too broad. But if you choose technology for its intrinsic merits you attract engineers with taste, who have the drive and luxury to care about their work on a different level. There are plenty more people who can't be arsed to or don't have the time or simply don't find it valuable enough to adopt "niche" technology, despite technical merits. I don't think it has anything to do with smarts, but rather with priorities and human nature. Most people follow the mainstream because they favor stability and convention, those who break out in different directions favor autonomy and freedom.

WJW 5y ago

It's not just less sexy, it leads to frustrated readers/viewers of your article/blog post/conference talk etc. If someone asked how to build a better system for their company and the answer they got was "first spend 5-10 years becoming a better programmer", they will be less happy than if you sell them on the idea that adopting Rust/Erlang/etc will magically make the hard task easier.