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> but they could have been just as successful using another language. I remember reading about one founder that picked an obscure language because in doing so,

> but they could have been just as successful using another language. I remember reading about one founder that picked an obscure language because in doing so, it self-selected for more curious engineers who worked in the languages for fun rather than any other practical (re:job) reasons. His thesis is that finding one really good engineer in said language was 1 in 10 (10 interviews to find 1 really good engineer) whereas in more commonly used languages like Java, JavaScript, etc., it might be 1 in 100 [Edit] https://www.juxt.pro/blog/clojure-in-griffin/ https://www.juxt.pro/blog/clojure-in-griffin/ If we had picked Python, it’s very boring and reliable, and the same could be said of Java. But you’re picking the lowest common denominator. I would say high performers, and the best programmers are often people that will only work in niche languages. The problem is, there are good Java programmers, but there are also thousands of terrible Java programmers. If you pick the right niche, it’s easier to find the high-end talent. I think Paul Graham also made a very strong case that in a startup, you should be using the most powerful language you can, and that is Clojure. I interviewed with one YC startup that was using ReScript and ReasonML on the same principle (I asked the founder why he chose Reason).

strikelaserclaw 3y ago
tons of successful companies (facebook) were founded on apps written in php (thought to be one of the lowest common denominator of the language world at one time).
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  Facebook, even early on, wasn't really what I would consider very technical in both engineering and domain complexity. When FB started to grow, it needed the HipHop VM[0] to make it scalable beyond PHP. I'd agree that PHP is a lowest common denominator and FB eventually needed to move beyond it to get to the next level. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHVM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHVM
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    I dunno man, they managed to mostly stay up during times of extreme growth, and were able to scale their graph stuff (people you may know etc) in a way that competing companies (i.e. Friendster) couldn't. The domain probably isn't that complicated, but the infrastructure certainly was (and this was all pre-cloud so they built it themselves). But yeah, FB's success came from a base level of keeping the site up and incredibly good tactics to drive growth and distribution.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    > , it needed the HipHop VM[0] to make it scalable beyond PHP. Also, it goes Php -> HipHop (compile PHP to C++) -> HHVM (compile PHP to a virtual machine running ASM).
hoosieree 3y ago
Talented people are valuable in general which gives them bargaining power so they can demand to use their preferred tech regardless of whether that tech is niche or not. I generally agree with the notion that talented folks are more likely to explore niche tech. Just be careful making the leap from "they prefer niche X" to "therefore they are talented". Two anecdotes: 1. I'm an average programmer who likes niche tech. 2. My friend is 10x more talented than me, but he likes mainstream tech.
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  > Just be careful making the leap from "they prefer niche X" to "therefore they are talented". Not my approach, to be sure :) I think I have a pretty good heuristic for finding curious and inquisitive people that doesn't rely on esoteric tech stacks. My sense is that a lot of engineering teams have lost their way so the only mechanism they can use now are convoluted leetcode style interviews instead to filter out Senior Java Dev Candidate 43 versus Senior Java Dev Candidate 96. I write a little about this here: Your Interview Process is Too Damn Long (and How to Fix It) (https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/10/your-interview-process-is-too-damn-long/ https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/10/your-interview-process-is-...)
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    In my experience the most used mechanism is "I worked with this person before, they're pretty good, give them a call"

strikelaserclaw 3y ago

tons of successful companies (facebook) were founded on apps written in php (thought to be one of the lowest common denominator of the language world at one time).

CharlieDigital 3y ago
Facebook, even early on, wasn't really what I would consider very technical in both engineering and domain complexity. When FB started to grow, it needed the HipHop VM[0] to make it scalable beyond PHP. I'd agree that PHP is a lowest common denominator and FB eventually needed to move beyond it to get to the next level. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHVM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HHVM
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  I dunno man, they managed to mostly stay up during times of extreme growth, and were able to scale their graph stuff (people you may know etc) in a way that competing companies (i.e. Friendster) couldn't. The domain probably isn't that complicated, but the infrastructure certainly was (and this was all pre-cloud so they built it themselves). But yeah, FB's success came from a base level of keeping the site up and incredibly good tactics to drive growth and distribution.
- disgruntledphd2 3y ago
  > , it needed the HipHop VM[0] to make it scalable beyond PHP. Also, it goes Php -> HipHop (compile PHP to C++) -> HHVM (compile PHP to a virtual machine running ASM).

hoosieree 3y ago

Talented people are valuable in general which gives them bargaining power so they can demand to use their preferred tech regardless of whether that tech is niche or not. I generally agree with the notion that talented folks are more likely to explore niche tech. Just be careful making the leap from "they prefer niche X" to "therefore they are talented". Two anecdotes: 1. I'm an average programmer who likes niche tech. 2. My friend is 10x more talented than me, but he likes mainstream tech.

CharlieDigital 3y ago
> Just be careful making the leap from "they prefer niche X" to "therefore they are talented". Not my approach, to be sure :) I think I have a pretty good heuristic for finding curious and inquisitive people that doesn't rely on esoteric tech stacks. My sense is that a lot of engineering teams have lost their way so the only mechanism they can use now are convoluted leetcode style interviews instead to filter out Senior Java Dev Candidate 43 versus Senior Java Dev Candidate 96. I write a little about this here: Your Interview Process is Too Damn Long (and How to Fix It) (https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/10/your-interview-process-is-too-damn-long/ https://chrlschn.dev/blog/2023/10/your-interview-process-is-...)
- TremendousJudge 3y ago
  In my experience the most used mechanism is "I worked with this person before, they're pretty good, give them a call"