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Without saying anything about this particular person, I've found an interesting pattern with people who seek out a specific programming language to work in: the

Without saying anything about this particular person, I've found an interesting pattern with people who seek out a specific programming language to work in: their actual code tends to suck pretty bad. People that obsess over any particular language will typically obsess over it because they learned some new abstraction trick and seem to think that everything should be rewritten in it. And so instead of focusing on the problem they have to solve, they become obsessed with rewriting code that already has solved problems...and they tend to do it in a way that is short and succinct but utterly opaque and black-boxish. No thanks. Again, I'm not expecting that everybody who does this is like this, but I've seen it enough that it is a pretty strong negative warning signal.

kradroy 5y ago
I have experienced this as well. Perhaps coincidentally the type of language they're always obsessed with is a functional one. I've yet to see a dev who's rabid over mutable state. They're usually bonzo for free monads. That being said, I've generally found people who are obsessed over a single "technological thing" at work (language type, language, framework, OOP dev principles) rarely produce anything of value. They're usually on a mission to prove themselves right at any cost. Flexibility and ingenuity are the keys to a productive dev career.
- darksaints 5y ago
  "They're usually on a mission to prove themselves right at any cost." Exactly. That being said I wish there were more devs obsessed with mutable state. Some problems are inherently mutable, and trying to make them immutable doesn't actually get rid of the state, it just pushes it around awkwardly. Classes, for as much hate as they get (mostly deserved IMO), are a godsend for those types of problems. And while they're helpful, stateful programming is still extremely hard. I really wish there was more innovation in this area.
  - Tainnor 5y ago
    You can work with mutable state in Haskell, you just have to be explicit about it (e.g. State monad).
dack 5y ago
while i don't disagree with you (i have also encountered the type of people you're referring to), i think the stance is more valid than people want to give it credit for. I would go so far as to say many of the people I've encountered who push back on "abstractions" and keep talking about how programming is "about solving problems" are the ones who allow the codebase to slowly go to shit in the name of features, and progress eventually grinds to a halt until a big rewrite. And in my experience, there are _way_ more of these types of people than the ones over-abstracting. Or it's possible my last company was just skewed toward that culture. Either way, I've only known a couple people who seem to balance these concerns well and they are the best programmers I know.
mjd 5y ago
How about people who say “I've done professional work in 17 languages but none is much like Blub. Blub looks interesting and I'd like to give it a try.” That seems like a less dubious motive.

kradroy 5y ago

I have experienced this as well. Perhaps coincidentally the type of language they're always obsessed with is a functional one. I've yet to see a dev who's rabid over mutable state. They're usually bonzo for free monads. That being said, I've generally found people who are obsessed over a single "technological thing" at work (language type, language, framework, OOP dev principles) rarely produce anything of value. They're usually on a mission to prove themselves right at any cost. Flexibility and ingenuity are the keys to a productive dev career.

darksaints 5y ago
"They're usually on a mission to prove themselves right at any cost." Exactly. That being said I wish there were more devs obsessed with mutable state. Some problems are inherently mutable, and trying to make them immutable doesn't actually get rid of the state, it just pushes it around awkwardly. Classes, for as much hate as they get (mostly deserved IMO), are a godsend for those types of problems. And while they're helpful, stateful programming is still extremely hard. I really wish there was more innovation in this area.
- Tainnor 5y ago
  You can work with mutable state in Haskell, you just have to be explicit about it (e.g. State monad).

dack 5y ago

while i don't disagree with you (i have also encountered the type of people you're referring to), i think the stance is more valid than people want to give it credit for. I would go so far as to say many of the people I've encountered who push back on "abstractions" and keep talking about how programming is "about solving problems" are the ones who allow the codebase to slowly go to shit in the name of features, and progress eventually grinds to a halt until a big rewrite. And in my experience, there are _way_ more of these types of people than the ones over-abstracting. Or it's possible my last company was just skewed toward that culture. Either way, I've only known a couple people who seem to balance these concerns well and they are the best programmers I know.

mjd 5y ago

How about people who say “I've done professional work in 17 languages but none is much like Blub. Blub looks interesting and I'd like to give it a try.” That seems like a less dubious motive.