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This is a bit overblown, IMO. I'm currently in the process of interviewing and hiring for a dev to work on an Elixir code base and I barely care at all whether

This is a bit overblown, IMO. I'm currently in the process of interviewing and hiring for a dev to work on an Elixir code base and I barely care at all whether or not a candidate has ever used it before. Last year I worked with an (excellent) ex-Bridgewater dev whose experience was mostly JVM and JS and he ramped up on Elixir and Phoenix very quickly. We pair programmed a couple of hours a day and he was productive in a few days and over 90% of the way there in terms of picking up needed frameworks, libraries, etc in a month. Learning lower-level concepts with C/C++/Rust is a bigger challenge, but still not that big if someone is using it all day at work. I'd be very concerned about devs who can't self-teach, regardless of whether or not they have a CS credential. That said, I do believe in mentorship on the job and some slack during paid hours for people to learn and improve. In many ways, learning is the job of a software engineer.

nerdponx 4y ago
What would have happened if your team didn't already have a bunch of experienced Elixir users on it? You'd have the blind leading the blind.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  For the project last year, it wasn't a bunch. It was just me and the ex-Bridgewater guy who was learning. Also, I taught myself back in 2017 while working on my own startup. Even back then, the docs were good and there were lots of helpful people on the internet.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    You're very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn "on the clock" then. Most developers are lucky if they can block out a week to learn something that isn't directly connected to "a feature".
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      No. I'm afraid you misread. I self-studied in 2017, while working on my own startup (and living on under $1k/month).
- eru 4y ago
  In that case they should have probably not picked Elixir?
schroeding 4y ago
> some slack during paid hours for people to learn and improve A key ingredient missing in the blog post, IMO. :)
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  Yeah... short-termism is a real problem.

nerdponx 4y ago

What would have happened if your team didn't already have a bunch of experienced Elixir users on it? You'd have the blind leading the blind.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
For the project last year, it wasn't a bunch. It was just me and the ex-Bridgewater guy who was learning. Also, I taught myself back in 2017 while working on my own startup. Even back then, the docs were good and there were lots of helpful people on the internet.
- nerdponx 4y ago
  You're very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn "on the clock" then. Most developers are lucky if they can block out a week to learn something that isn't directly connected to "a feature".
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    No. I'm afraid you misread. I self-studied in 2017, while working on my own startup (and living on under $1k/month).
eru 4y ago
In that case they should have probably not picked Elixir?

schroeding 4y ago

> some slack during paid hours for people to learn and improve A key ingredient missing in the blog post, IMO. :)

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
Yeah... short-termism is a real problem.