5 ms·

I still recall a CS jobs fair at my college ~8 years ago, where some company representative took a very bad liking to Erlang on my CV (I took a "Programming Lan

by hoten 3y ago

I still recall a CS jobs fair at my college ~8 years ago, where some company representative took a very bad liking to Erlang on my CV (I took a "Programming Languages" course where Erlang was one of ~6 languages we chewed through. s/o venkat!) He kept asking "why use this over Java at my work X". He seemed to have the idea I wanted to join his company and rewrite their web administrative tools used by 5 people in Erlang. Not sure why he got so annoyed, and didn't ask me about anything other than a language he thought was silly!

microtonal 3y ago
Maybe experience with language enthusiasts? When a language has fewer users, the users that it has are more likely to be enthusiasts. Reminds about me I was talking to a company at a booth. They were using Java and up comes this guy who started professing that that was all wrong and they should rewrite their whole stack in Lisp. I guess you’ll become allergic to minority programming languages if that happens often enough.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  > Reminds about me I was talking to a company at a booth. They were using Java and up comes this guy who started professing that that was all wrong and they should rewrite their whole stack in Lisp. Same story except it wasn't Lisp, but Rust
- weatherlight 3y ago
  I frequently get told that the newest version of the JVM can do everything the Erlang VM can do and I should consider switching. Even here, in the comments of hacker news, I've witnessed JVM fanboys proclaim that Erlang, if "properly" implemented, for the JVM, would be faster and more performant then the Erlang VM. Theres zealots on both sides of the fence.
Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago
Seems to be a general knee-jerk reaction from typical CS-majors and other Java/C++ "bros" around Erlang. A more mature reflection could easily see lots of potential niches for Erlang, with the big caveat from a business perspective of the relative difficulty in finding devs. I had the pleasure to encounter Erlang professionally many many moons agos, in it's originally intended role within telecoms switching, and was nothing but impressed by it. The argument here might be less about Erlang and more about Maslow's hammer - i.e., if all you've got is a hammer then all you can see are nails.
- danielscrubs 3y ago
  "CS majors"? Can you specify which universities you think have that mindset? At least for us, CS is just algorithms and maths, we had only one single course for a specific language in my five years (C) but you where required to just pick up whatever the professor chose. If you check the list of computer science awards they all focus on algos & maths so it feels weird if you could get a degree with a "language is what matters" mindset.
  - Arch-TK 3y ago
    Seems like the standard CS degree course in the UK (at least last time I researched this stuff which was some years ago) heavily focuses around teaching the most popular tech stacks and employability and does not really focus as much at fostering a general interest in CS.
    - pmontra 3y ago
      Isn't that Software Engineering instead of Computer Science?
      - wil421 3y ago
        My understanding is the same. CS is a couple of programming classes and then algos and math. SE focuses on creating actual software.
      - Arch-TK 3y ago
        I mean yes, but at least a few years ago when I last looked at this, CS degrees in this country were heavily SE oriented and standalone SE courses were rare. I think the problem was lots of people were applying for CS degrees expecting SE courses and universities adjusted to cater for this. It meant that actual CS degrees seemed sparse for a while.
    - maffydub 3y ago
      Here's the course list for Cambridge for 2019-2020: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1920/cst/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1920/cst/ Yes, there are courses on Java and C/C++ (and also LATEX, MATLAB and Prolog!), but these are a few out of 60 courses in total, which include things like algorithms, information theory, distributed systems and optimizing compilers. ...although maybe Cambridge isn't a "standard" CS degree?
bombolo 3y ago
> He seemed to have the idea I wanted to join his company and rewrite their web administrative tools used by 5 people in Erlang That's what people do with rust! Not erlang!
- fuzztester 3y ago
  That's so that their dev skills don't get rusty. Oops - wrong pun - or maybe - er - lang one.
- oytis 3y ago
  That goes both ways. I've seen "let's rewrite all company's code in Java/Go" more than once. Boring languages have their own fan base
vbezhenar 3y ago
There are enough young enthusiasts who will rewrite something to weird tech without asking, even if they were tasked just to add a simple feature. It's a real problem. So after few bad encounters businesses might prefer to hire boring people.
- raverbashing 3y ago
  Yes, boring business (or undermanaged ones) prefer to hire boring people
- Barrin92 3y ago
  It's a pretty big leap though to take someone's academic interests as an indicator about their ability to do work. If that guy sees that I took two semesters of medieval history, is he going to be afraid that I'll turn the workplace into a Renaissance fair? Having to hide your interests to look more bland might be the saddest thing I read today. I Just imagine that those recruiters have some sort of list of subversive activities. 1. Was an active member of the Red Army Faction OR 2. Read a book about Erlang or Lisp, is now too dangerous to be reintroduced into the general developer population
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    CV's are just a bad way to judge developers. A link to a github account is far more valuable IMO. If you have nothing on github (or another code sharing service), then you probably don't have a passion for software.
- hoten 3y ago
  Oh I definitely understand the aversion, just not why it was directed towards me!
- imiric 3y ago
  > There are enough young enthusiasts who will rewrite something to weird tech without asking This is a communication problem, and not something you can infer from a CV. I can't see why having experience with any particular language would be a bad thing—quite the contrary. There are concepts to learn from each language, and the more languages under an engineer's belt (particularly "weird" languages), the more open they are to novel solutions. The tool analogy works well: you would want someone who's familiar with an axe and a chisel, and not only a hammer. Someone thinking this is a bad thing shouldn't be making hiring decisions. It speaks more of the company, so OP probably dodged a bullet.
rapsey 3y ago
From my experience a lot of Java guys have no idea about the wider world of languages out there. They can be total experts in Java and get very confused why you are not writing something in Java. The vast majority of programmers don't read HN, reddit or really follow any industry news. They work in Java or C# which are entirely self sufficient with very comprehensive SDKs.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  I mainly use C# (among other languages) but still read HN and follow news in tech.
MattPalmer1086 3y ago
Sounds like you had a lucky escape then. Maybe he wasnt really representative of the company culture, but they picked him to represent them.
ricardobayes 3y ago
My local CS uni always put an emphasis on Erlang and that was weird to me until I learned there was an Ericsson HQ down the street
throw_pm23 3y ago
In one CS job application in college I wrote in the list of skills "can write good prose". By this I meant both that I knew English, which was not obvious at that time and place, and that I can structure text logically, e.g. for documentation. The interviewer kept mocking it and asking what did I mean by prose and whether I can also write in rhymes if needed, and ended up not making an offer. Twenty years later, good writing is still the most important skill in my career and the one that I rely on most often.
- TickleSteve 3y ago
  The ability to explain yourself clearly and precisely in the written word is a skill not much appreciated by most engineers (sadly).
- gregjw 3y ago
  Their loss. The ultimate 'soft skill'.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Okay, story time: About 10 years ago a friend of mine asked me to apply for a job in his team (at this big famous company starting with A). I had exactly the right qualifications and we had worked before so it was basically a done deal. I send my application through the normal channels and their HR team rejected me before reaching my friend. Among my qualifications I had jokingly added that I could fake a Pink Floyd riff or two on the guitar... I was asked to apply again. I declined.
kramerger 3y ago
> He seemed to have the idea I wanted to join his company and rewrite their web administrative tools used by 5 people To be fair, this is exactly how I would react if Haskell is the main language on someones CV. Disclaimer: Im okay with Erlang but hate Haskell and ML derivatives

by hoten 3y ago

microtonal 3y ago

Maybe experience with language enthusiasts? When a language has fewer users, the users that it has are more likely to be enthusiasts. Reminds about me I was talking to a company at a booth. They were using Java and up comes this guy who started professing that that was all wrong and they should rewrite their whole stack in Lisp. I guess you’ll become allergic to minority programming languages if that happens often enough.

medo-bear 3y ago
> Reminds about me I was talking to a company at a booth. They were using Java and up comes this guy who started professing that that was all wrong and they should rewrite their whole stack in Lisp. Same story except it wasn't Lisp, but Rust
weatherlight 3y ago
I frequently get told that the newest version of the JVM can do everything the Erlang VM can do and I should consider switching. Even here, in the comments of hacker news, I've witnessed JVM fanboys proclaim that Erlang, if "properly" implemented, for the JVM, would be faster and more performant then the Erlang VM. Theres zealots on both sides of the fence.

Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago

Seems to be a general knee-jerk reaction from typical CS-majors and other Java/C++ "bros" around Erlang. A more mature reflection could easily see lots of potential niches for Erlang, with the big caveat from a business perspective of the relative difficulty in finding devs. I had the pleasure to encounter Erlang professionally many many moons agos, in it's originally intended role within telecoms switching, and was nothing but impressed by it. The argument here might be less about Erlang and more about Maslow's hammer - i.e., if all you've got is a hammer then all you can see are nails.

danielscrubs 3y ago
"CS majors"? Can you specify which universities you think have that mindset? At least for us, CS is just algorithms and maths, we had only one single course for a specific language in my five years (C) but you where required to just pick up whatever the professor chose. If you check the list of computer science awards they all focus on algos & maths so it feels weird if you could get a degree with a "language is what matters" mindset.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  Seems like the standard CS degree course in the UK (at least last time I researched this stuff which was some years ago) heavily focuses around teaching the most popular tech stacks and employability and does not really focus as much at fostering a general interest in CS.
  - pmontra 3y ago
    Isn't that Software Engineering instead of Computer Science?
    - wil421 3y ago
      My understanding is the same. CS is a couple of programming classes and then algos and math. SE focuses on creating actual software.
    - Arch-TK 3y ago
      I mean yes, but at least a few years ago when I last looked at this, CS degrees in this country were heavily SE oriented and standalone SE courses were rare. I think the problem was lots of people were applying for CS degrees expecting SE courses and universities adjusted to cater for this. It meant that actual CS degrees seemed sparse for a while.
  - maffydub 3y ago
    Here's the course list for Cambridge for 2019-2020: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1920/cst/ https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/1920/cst/ Yes, there are courses on Java and C/C++ (and also LATEX, MATLAB and Prolog!), but these are a few out of 60 courses in total, which include things like algorithms, information theory, distributed systems and optimizing compilers. ...although maybe Cambridge isn't a "standard" CS degree?

bombolo 3y ago

> He seemed to have the idea I wanted to join his company and rewrite their web administrative tools used by 5 people in Erlang That's what people do with rust! Not erlang!

fuzztester 3y ago
That's so that their dev skills don't get rusty. Oops - wrong pun - or maybe - er - lang one.
oytis 3y ago
That goes both ways. I've seen "let's rewrite all company's code in Java/Go" more than once. Boring languages have their own fan base

vbezhenar 3y ago

There are enough young enthusiasts who will rewrite something to weird tech without asking, even if they were tasked just to add a simple feature. It's a real problem. So after few bad encounters businesses might prefer to hire boring people.

raverbashing 3y ago
Yes, boring business (or undermanaged ones) prefer to hire boring people
Barrin92 3y ago
It's a pretty big leap though to take someone's academic interests as an indicator about their ability to do work. If that guy sees that I took two semesters of medieval history, is he going to be afraid that I'll turn the workplace into a Renaissance fair? Having to hide your interests to look more bland might be the saddest thing I read today. I Just imagine that those recruiters have some sort of list of subversive activities. 1. Was an active member of the Red Army Faction OR 2. Read a book about Erlang or Lisp, is now too dangerous to be reintroduced into the general developer population
- londons_explore 3y ago
  CV's are just a bad way to judge developers. A link to a github account is far more valuable IMO. If you have nothing on github (or another code sharing service), then you probably don't have a passion for software.
hoten 3y ago
Oh I definitely understand the aversion, just not why it was directed towards me!
imiric 3y ago
> There are enough young enthusiasts who will rewrite something to weird tech without asking This is a communication problem, and not something you can infer from a CV. I can't see why having experience with any particular language would be a bad thing—quite the contrary. There are concepts to learn from each language, and the more languages under an engineer's belt (particularly "weird" languages), the more open they are to novel solutions. The tool analogy works well: you would want someone who's familiar with an axe and a chisel, and not only a hammer. Someone thinking this is a bad thing shouldn't be making hiring decisions. It speaks more of the company, so OP probably dodged a bullet.

rapsey 3y ago

From my experience a lot of Java guys have no idea about the wider world of languages out there. They can be total experts in Java and get very confused why you are not writing something in Java. The vast majority of programmers don't read HN, reddit or really follow any industry news. They work in Java or C# which are entirely self sufficient with very comprehensive SDKs.

DeathArrow 3y ago
I mainly use C# (among other languages) but still read HN and follow news in tech.

MattPalmer1086 3y ago

Sounds like you had a lucky escape then. Maybe he wasnt really representative of the company culture, but they picked him to represent them.

ricardobayes 3y ago

My local CS uni always put an emphasis on Erlang and that was weird to me until I learned there was an Ericsson HQ down the street

throw_pm23 3y ago

In one CS job application in college I wrote in the list of skills "can write good prose". By this I meant both that I knew English, which was not obvious at that time and place, and that I can structure text logically, e.g. for documentation. The interviewer kept mocking it and asking what did I mean by prose and whether I can also write in rhymes if needed, and ended up not making an offer. Twenty years later, good writing is still the most important skill in my career and the one that I rely on most often.

TickleSteve 3y ago
The ability to explain yourself clearly and precisely in the written word is a skill not much appreciated by most engineers (sadly).
gregjw 3y ago
Their loss. The ultimate 'soft skill'.
kramerger 3y ago
Okay, story time: About 10 years ago a friend of mine asked me to apply for a job in his team (at this big famous company starting with A). I had exactly the right qualifications and we had worked before so it was basically a done deal. I send my application through the normal channels and their HR team rejected me before reaching my friend. Among my qualifications I had jokingly added that I could fake a Pink Floyd riff or two on the guitar... I was asked to apply again. I declined.

kramerger 3y ago

> He seemed to have the idea I wanted to join his company and rewrite their web administrative tools used by 5 people To be fair, this is exactly how I would react if Haskell is the main language on someones CV. Disclaimer: Im okay with Erlang but hate Haskell and ML derivatives