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Jane Street wasn't all that prestigious when they started using OCaml. The way they put it is "it was easier to find great programmers in the empty set of peopl
by felixyz 3y ago
Jane Street wasn't all that prestigious when they started using OCaml. The way they put it is "it was easier to find great programmers in the empty set of people who know OCaml than in the huge set of other programmers" (roughly). So, on the contrary, I think it might help boring cludgy company find quality talent.
I think there is a fallacy being repeated in this thread, namely that the choice is between mainstream and weird, or between old-and-tested and new-and-shiny. No, that's not the choice. The choice is between tools and abstractions that are helpful and productive, and those that aren't. Some of the helpful and productive things are old, some are new, some are mainstream, some are niche.
I don't fully understand how someone wants to spend their career in programming and not actively seek out what is helpful and productive, rather than what currently gets the most questions on Stack Overflow or has a big pool of people who put it on their CV. It's not like all languages are equally good. It's a wasteful approach.
- decafninja 3y agoThere's another aspect, which myself and a few others in this thread have mentioned - hireability. Both from the company's and employee's perspective. I'm pretty sure Jane Street would have paid well even when they were an obscure name. Will boring cludgy Fortune500 company or noname startup pay well for someone to come use an exotic tech stack that is used very rarely at any other companies? Likely not. Likewise, would an engineer well versed in some exotic language, and can land offers at top companies, come work for a boring cludgy Fortune500 company that is only willing to pay a fraction of what they can get elsewhere? Maybe if you've already made your fortune elsewhere and well on the road to FIRE, and are really just looking for interesting work regardless of pay.
- felixyz 3y agoSo are you saying that Jane Street more or less bribed people who didn't really care for OCaml to come work in a weird language, by offering a good salary? I find that far-fetched, and there are many other examples of companies attractive highly-competent people because they choose -- no, not exotic, weird, or niche tech, but good tech, that aid people thinking more clearly and abstracting better. As in everything else, there is a trade-off involved here of course. And what is truly good and helpful is by no means obvious, and might take time to assess.
- decafninja 3y ago"Bribed" is a crude way to describe it, but in a manner of speaking, yes? I think you might be a tad idealistic, and you might think I'm being a tad cynical. Maybe the truth is in the middle somewhere. But throwing enough money at someone can talk. And not throwing enough money at someone can also talk. Short of being asked to do something unethical or illegal, what's wrong with that? Can you honestly say all of the talented top engineers out there working for top paying companies are doing it for the pursuit of technological perfection, and aren't doing it at least partially for the good money? I would say the same thing about doctors - people all love to say you should not get into medicine for money, but can we honestly say money isn't at least a factor in whether someone decides to pursue a MD?
- yafbum 3y ago"Helpful and productive" is highly context dependent. There are many tasks for which Ocaml is great at, and also many tasks for which there are much better choices available.