9 ms·

OCaml vs All: Good luck finding developers that will write quality code and not cost a fortune each.

• akhmatova 4y ago
  It's not getting things done that matters. It's feeling superior to others that matters.
  • shikoba 4y ago
    Hey, it's not a feeling. It's a fact.
    • hutzlibu 4y ago
      It is certainly a fact, that you feel superior. I would like to confirm that fact, by comparing productive output..
      • wiseowise 4y ago
        Define "productive output".
        • hutzlibu 4y ago
          Producing code, that primarily solves the real world problem (not aesthetic ones).
          • yawaramin 4y ago
            What kind of code? People who want to solve real-world problems treat programming languages like tools in their toolbox. In the past week at work I wrote Scala, HTML, JavaScript, YAML, and Terraform. I also remove tons of code from my production systems whenever I get the chance as it solves a real-world problem for me (maintainability of the code base). 'Producing code' to measure 'superiority' is about as useful a metric as counting lines of code to measure productivity.
  • ladis_washerum 4y ago
• yawaramin 4y ago
  If Jane Street can teach OCaml to traders, I can teach it to developers. That's not a concern for anyone other than a sweatshop.
  • akhmatova 4y ago
    If Jane Street can teach OCaml to traders, I can teach it to developers. You can if they are motivated to learn. Unless you are offering Jane Street levels of compensation; and in return, the candidate is willing to believe, or pretend to believe that company's shtick about OCaml being so categorically superior as a general-purpose development language so as to leave all the others in the dust -- most likely they won't be.
    • yawaramin 4y ago
      Or if, you know, they were hired to work on a project where they get paid a salary. That seems to incentivize most devs.
      • akhmatova 4y ago
        Not "a salary", but a Jane Street salary and resume cred. Otherwise you just won't find that many takers.
        • yawaramin 4y ago
          I can assure you I will and in fact have found plenty of takers for my job postings with a niche language. You just need to word the postings appropriately and be willing to teach people what they don't know.
          • akhmatova 4y ago
            You just need to word the postings appropriately and be willing to teach people what they don't know. OK, I'll grant that if you have that "magic skill" then you can in fact recruit developers for niche languages. Most companies don't, as we know, and frankly it's amazing to me how incoherent their communications are throughout their so-called hiring process.
• AlexanderNull 4y ago
  Good luck finding high quality cheap developers in any language really. Very few good developers are language specific so unless your HM is an idiot and actively screens out candidates without 10 years of previous experience in the specific framework you're using it won't be a limitation. If you want quality developers you need to offer either 1) lots of money, 2) amazing benefits, 3) interesting problems to work on. For many, an interesting language can provide an edge. I chose my current company because I would be working on Scala here as opposed to Java with the other offers I had. The quality of life improvement of the Scala position was enough to take it over the prospect of writing AbstractFactoryBeanImpl for the next few years.
• wiseowise 4y ago
  > Good luck finding developers that will write quality code and not cost a fortune each. You pick one regardless of language. Not sure what's your point here.