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> Resume-driven development should not be a thing. Pretend this is not about library choice, but rather about language choice. One language has 2 jobs, and the

> Resume-driven development should not be a thing. Pretend this is not about library choice, but rather about language choice. One language has 2 jobs, and the other language 13k jobs. I doubt you'd think for more than a second.

azangru 10mo ago
> One language has 2 jobs, and the other language 13k jobs. I doubt you'd think for more than a second. The Hacker News website runs on Lisp. How many jobs do you see on the market that ask for Lisp? And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- chuckadams 10mo ago
  Not just Lisp, but Arc at that. That's about as niche as it gets.
- marcus_holmes 10mo ago
  This is all true. But then, if you ran HN and needed to hire new devs, you could find them extremely easily just by posting on your own site. HN is a well-known project that people would want to work on because it looks great on their resume and gives kudos when talking to other devs. In other words, HN does not have the problem that you are going to have if you use an unpopular language for your project. If you choose LISP for your not-HN project, then you have a problem. The chances are very slim of finding any experienced LISP devs who are also in your salary range, within commute distance, want to work on your project, are a good fit for the team, etc. You're probably going to have to hire a dev who is a good match on all those other things and train them up on LISP. Unless they've had experience with other functional languages (not that unusual, but not common either) then they're going to have to learn an entire new paradigm. All of which means that they'll spend the first six months going slow while they learn, and needing support from the rest of the team. And you'll need to convince them to join you (probably by paying them more money) because if they spend a few years on your project learning LISP, they probably won't be able to use those skills for their next gig, and their current skills in a popular language will go out of date. LISP is a great language, and if used well it will probably give you an advantage over the competition using other, more mundane, languages. But is that going to be enough of an advantage to counteract your slower onboarding, higher salaries, and greater recruitment workload?
  - jimbokun 10mo ago
    No, you will find strong candidates who love Lisp and want to quit their job slinging Java to work on your Lisp project.
    - marcus_holmes 10mo ago
      Yeah, maybe. Though finding them is still harder than just using Java in the first place.
- lerp-io 10mo ago
  this site can also vibe coded in seconds.
  - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
    lol Yea what a wild example to pick from. A web programming 101 website being heralded as why it's okay to use a tech like Lisp to build web apps feels pretty standard for HN though. It's a list of articles and comments. It would take like 3 pages from W3Schools to build this thing.
    - azangru 10mo ago
      I am deeply baffled by this kind of response. Firstly, because this site happily handles the amount of traffic that puts many hobbyist sites that happen to get on its front page into a hug of death; so its developers must have done something right on the backend that is probably above the web programming 101 level. But secondly, because this was precisely my point. One does not need a super popular front-end framework to make an awesome web product, and the HackerNews site is a testament to that.
      - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
        > I am deeply baffled by this kind of response. No you're not. You're just trying to respond with something witty. It's a message board with 1% of the functionality most sites people are building with frameworks. > Firstly, because this site happily handles the amount of traffic that puts many hobbyist sites that happen to get on its front page into a hug of death; Lol are you really implying it's hard to scale a message board? > One does not need a super popular front-end framework to make an awesome web product, and the HackerNews site is a testament to that. IT'S A MESSAGE BOARD. Nobody is building message boards anymore. Using HN as an example for anything other than building a dirt simple message boardsays more about your refusal to recognize the need to these new technologies than it does about those technologies. > awesome web product A. Message. Board.
        10mo ago
- mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
  > The Hacker News website runs on Lisp. You mean the message board? The website that has a grand total of 2 functions: post and comment? > And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! It's 2 colors and text. That's it. > ! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those. It's A MESSAGE BOARD. A. MESSAGE. BOARD.
  - azangru 10mo ago
    > It's A MESSAGE BOARD. A. MESSAGE. BOARD. Have you seen how many blog or portfolio sites people build with react? Sometimes even adding nextjs into the mix? Blogs!
    - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
      So? That doesn't change the fact that HN is a dirt simple message board anybody could build.
      - azangru 10mo ago
        > That doesn't change the fact that HN is a dirt simple message board anybody could build. What is this an objection to? If you follow this thread upwards, where was it suggested that we should be talking about things so complex that nobody, or only very few, could build? The whole pitch of htmx is that it is proposed for building things that anybody could build. The article in the title assumes that the target audience isn't building Google Docs, Figma, video editors, or CAD tools.
        mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
        It's an objection to this: > How many jobs do you see on the market that ask for Lisp? And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those. You pointing out that the dumb simple message board is written in LISP and doesn't need anymore more is a bit absurd. No shit they aren't rushing to upgrade it. IT BARELY DOES ANYTHING TO BEGIN WITH. Anytime a certain class of developer see the word "React" that end up saying the most ridiculous shit. Nobody, I mean nobody, thinks HN is a site worthy of replicating or achieving unless they're part of the .0000002% who couldn't find a prepackaged board from Google search results.
- petre 10mo ago
  Except it's not a language. It's a library. Both of them are, in fact.
intrasight 10mo ago
One language - JSX - has 10 jobs. The other language - HTML - has over 30,000 jobs
- mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
  lol JSX isn't a language. There aren't "JSX" jobs. I feel like only a backend developer trying to score "gotcha" points could make this argument and be confident about it.
  - intrasight 10mo ago
    There are emacs modes for it, so I claim it's a language.
  - endofreach 10mo ago
    > backend developer You mean a real developer?
    - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
      The real developer who doesn't know that JSX isn't a language? lol Sure.

azangru 10mo ago

> One language has 2 jobs, and the other language 13k jobs. I doubt you'd think for more than a second. The Hacker News website runs on Lisp. How many jobs do you see on the market that ask for Lisp? And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
chuckadams 10mo ago
Not just Lisp, but Arc at that. That's about as niche as it gets.
marcus_holmes 10mo ago
This is all true. But then, if you ran HN and needed to hire new devs, you could find them extremely easily just by posting on your own site. HN is a well-known project that people would want to work on because it looks great on their resume and gives kudos when talking to other devs. In other words, HN does not have the problem that you are going to have if you use an unpopular language for your project. If you choose LISP for your not-HN project, then you have a problem. The chances are very slim of finding any experienced LISP devs who are also in your salary range, within commute distance, want to work on your project, are a good fit for the team, etc. You're probably going to have to hire a dev who is a good match on all those other things and train them up on LISP. Unless they've had experience with other functional languages (not that unusual, but not common either) then they're going to have to learn an entire new paradigm. All of which means that they'll spend the first six months going slow while they learn, and needing support from the rest of the team. And you'll need to convince them to join you (probably by paying them more money) because if they spend a few years on your project learning LISP, they probably won't be able to use those skills for their next gig, and their current skills in a popular language will go out of date. LISP is a great language, and if used well it will probably give you an advantage over the competition using other, more mundane, languages. But is that going to be enough of an advantage to counteract your slower onboarding, higher salaries, and greater recruitment workload?
- jimbokun 10mo ago
  No, you will find strong candidates who love Lisp and want to quit their job slinging Java to work on your Lisp project.
  - marcus_holmes 10mo ago
    Yeah, maybe. Though finding them is still harder than just using Java in the first place.
lerp-io 10mo ago
this site can also vibe coded in seconds.
- mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
  lol Yea what a wild example to pick from. A web programming 101 website being heralded as why it's okay to use a tech like Lisp to build web apps feels pretty standard for HN though. It's a list of articles and comments. It would take like 3 pages from W3Schools to build this thing.
  - azangru 10mo ago
    I am deeply baffled by this kind of response. Firstly, because this site happily handles the amount of traffic that puts many hobbyist sites that happen to get on its front page into a hug of death; so its developers must have done something right on the backend that is probably above the web programming 101 level. But secondly, because this was precisely my point. One does not need a super popular front-end framework to make an awesome web product, and the HackerNews site is a testament to that.
    - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
      > I am deeply baffled by this kind of response. No you're not. You're just trying to respond with something witty. It's a message board with 1% of the functionality most sites people are building with frameworks. > Firstly, because this site happily handles the amount of traffic that puts many hobbyist sites that happen to get on its front page into a hug of death; Lol are you really implying it's hard to scale a message board? > One does not need a super popular front-end framework to make an awesome web product, and the HackerNews site is a testament to that. IT'S A MESSAGE BOARD. Nobody is building message boards anymore. Using HN as an example for anything other than building a dirt simple message boardsays more about your refusal to recognize the need to these new technologies than it does about those technologies. > awesome web product A. Message. Board.
      - 10mo ago
mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
> The Hacker News website runs on Lisp. You mean the message board? The website that has a grand total of 2 functions: post and comment? > And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! It's 2 colors and text. That's it. > ! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those. It's A MESSAGE BOARD. A. MESSAGE. BOARD.
- azangru 10mo ago
  > It's A MESSAGE BOARD. A. MESSAGE. BOARD. Have you seen how many blog or portfolio sites people build with react? Sometimes even adding nextjs into the mix? Blogs!
  - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
    So? That doesn't change the fact that HN is a dirt simple message board anybody could build.
    - azangru 10mo ago
      > That doesn't change the fact that HN is a dirt simple message board anybody could build. What is this an objection to? If you follow this thread upwards, where was it suggested that we should be talking about things so complex that nobody, or only very few, could build? The whole pitch of htmx is that it is proposed for building things that anybody could build. The article in the title assumes that the target audience isn't building Google Docs, Figma, video editors, or CAD tools.
      - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
        It's an objection to this: > How many jobs do you see on the market that ask for Lisp? And yet, for what it is, this site is amazing! I don't see them rushing to migrate to a python backend and a react-based frontend, no matter how many jobs there are for those. You pointing out that the dumb simple message board is written in LISP and doesn't need anymore more is a bit absurd. No shit they aren't rushing to upgrade it. IT BARELY DOES ANYTHING TO BEGIN WITH. Anytime a certain class of developer see the word "React" that end up saying the most ridiculous shit. Nobody, I mean nobody, thinks HN is a site worthy of replicating or achieving unless they're part of the .0000002% who couldn't find a prepackaged board from Google search results.
petre 10mo ago
Except it's not a language. It's a library. Both of them are, in fact.

intrasight 10mo ago

One language - JSX - has 10 jobs. The other language - HTML - has over 30,000 jobs

mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
lol JSX isn't a language. There aren't "JSX" jobs. I feel like only a backend developer trying to score "gotcha" points could make this argument and be confident about it.
- intrasight 10mo ago
  There are emacs modes for it, so I claim it's a language.
- endofreach 10mo ago
  > backend developer You mean a real developer?
  - mexicocitinluez 10mo ago
    The real developer who doesn't know that JSX isn't a language? lol Sure.