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Production and training aren't a binary. It's realistic enough to have a couple of senior devs write the scaffolding that segregates the nasty details, then hav

Production and training aren't a binary. It's realistic enough to have a couple of senior devs write the scaffolding that segregates the nasty details, then have junior devs pair with them on the more logically pure modules. As long as you don't work for sweatshop that expects delivery on day one, it's no biggie at all. I've been on both sides of the equation and it works quite well in the long run.

dudul 5y ago
Playing devils advocate: sounds pretty complicated. We'll just use Javascript and have access to an ever growing pool of cheap devs. Not saying your approach isn't reasonable, but c suite execs are not always reasonable, and it may be hard to justify this whole setup just to use language X.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  It's not just "c-suite execs". If our department has 60 devs across 5-10 teams, the cost of "simply" bringing in people who don't know the language and expecting to both onboard them to business and teach them a new language becomes astronomical
- jim-jim-jim 5y ago
  I guess I'm not just speaking in favor of language x, but a broader culture of knowledge sharing, pairing, and educational development that naturally supports languages like x. I realize this is anathema to slavedrivers, but it can and does work.
dmitriid 5y ago
> As long as you don't work for sweatshop that expects delivery on day one, it's no biggie at all. What about "a big company with multiple dev teams that are expected to actually deliver things on time"?
- jim-jim-jim 5y ago
  I work for a large firm (hundreds of engineering staff) that invested in strongly-typed FP. We deliver things on time because we're not putting out fires caused by stupid runtime errors. There's more than enough time to teach the juniors along the way too. Once again, education is a ultimately a facet of productivity, not something that detracts from it.
  - StefanWestfal 5y ago
    Which languages are you using if I may ask? I was looking at Haskell and Elm and some repositories show little activity. Was the ecosystem a problem for you?
    - jim-jim-jim 5y ago
      Haskell, Scala, Typescript, and Purescript. Ecosystem is better with Scala, but hasn't been too much of a problem in any of them, perhaps because we try to avoid too many dependencies.

dudul 5y ago

Playing devils advocate: sounds pretty complicated. We'll just use Javascript and have access to an ever growing pool of cheap devs. Not saying your approach isn't reasonable, but c suite execs are not always reasonable, and it may be hard to justify this whole setup just to use language X.

dmitriid 5y ago
It's not just "c-suite execs". If our department has 60 devs across 5-10 teams, the cost of "simply" bringing in people who don't know the language and expecting to both onboard them to business and teach them a new language becomes astronomical
jim-jim-jim 5y ago
I guess I'm not just speaking in favor of language x, but a broader culture of knowledge sharing, pairing, and educational development that naturally supports languages like x. I realize this is anathema to slavedrivers, but it can and does work.

dmitriid 5y ago

> As long as you don't work for sweatshop that expects delivery on day one, it's no biggie at all. What about "a big company with multiple dev teams that are expected to actually deliver things on time"?

jim-jim-jim 5y ago
I work for a large firm (hundreds of engineering staff) that invested in strongly-typed FP. We deliver things on time because we're not putting out fires caused by stupid runtime errors. There's more than enough time to teach the juniors along the way too. Once again, education is a ultimately a facet of productivity, not something that detracts from it.
- StefanWestfal 5y ago
  Which languages are you using if I may ask? I was looking at Haskell and Elm and some repositories show little activity. Was the ecosystem a problem for you?
  - jim-jim-jim 5y ago
    Haskell, Scala, Typescript, and Purescript. Ecosystem is better with Scala, but hasn't been too much of a problem in any of them, perhaps because we try to avoid too many dependencies.