4 ms·

I've thought about it--it's a rather small company, with generally smart people on the team. It might happen, but the problem is mostly political. I also need t

by zwegner 13y ago

I've thought about it--it's a rather small company, with generally smart people on the team. It might happen, but the problem is mostly political. I also need to learn more Clojure... (I've learned enough Scala to convince myself that I don't really want to learn it)

michaelochurch 13y ago
Scala is good if you have good programmers. Otherwise, it's painful, because they tend to write Java-in-Scala code. Also, it has a compile-speed problem that is tolerable in general but catastrophic if you have bad engineering practices (specifically, cyclical dependencies). I just got back into Clojure after leaving my last job and the language (which was already very good) has gotten a whole lot better in the past 2 years. I recommend it highly. Where do you live? What's the tech scene like in <X>? My wife and I are both ready to leave New York. We'll stay if I find something great, but I don't want to work in social media and my "job hopper" story (too many startups and consulting projects, NYC finance firms tending to perceive the latter as similar to short-term jobs even though they're not) is making finance annoying. (I can still get hedge-fund jobs, that's easy as crap, but there are few good ones and, besides, I like technology a lot better than finance.) Our short list is SF, Austin, Boston, but not limited to those 3 places by any means.
- zwegner 13y ago
  WRT Scala, of course I don't know much about it, but it just seems way too complicated for its own good. It's like the C++ of functional programming. I don't really want to invest that much time in it just to become somewhat fluent, and then trying to convince others to do so is pretty much a non-starter. I'm in Austin, and it's pretty nice. I imagine you know enough about the tech scene already (perhaps more than me?). There are lots of opportunities, but the "good" software jobs are rather elusive (especially for a college dropout like myself).
- pnathan 13y ago
  FYI, Seattle, and too a small extent, Portland have a tech scene. But you probably have to like the PNW.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    Portland has Galois, which may be up his alley.
- Schwolop 13y ago
  Send an email to Yanis Varoufakis @ Valve. He's the economics guy doing analysis of in-game economies and applying various machine learning techniques to determine pricing strategies, etc. I suspect even if that doesn't appeal, there'd be a bunch of interesting work that could use someone with your background.
  - dpritchett 13y ago
    Wow, that's a great suggestion. Valve + finance + ML. I can't imagine a better fit off the top of my head.

by zwegner 13y ago

michaelochurch 13y ago

Scala is good if you have good programmers. Otherwise, it's painful, because they tend to write Java-in-Scala code. Also, it has a compile-speed problem that is tolerable in general but catastrophic if you have bad engineering practices (specifically, cyclical dependencies). I just got back into Clojure after leaving my last job and the language (which was already very good) has gotten a whole lot better in the past 2 years. I recommend it highly. Where do you live? What's the tech scene like in <X>? My wife and I are both ready to leave New York. We'll stay if I find something great, but I don't want to work in social media and my "job hopper" story (too many startups and consulting projects, NYC finance firms tending to perceive the latter as similar to short-term jobs even though they're not) is making finance annoying. (I can still get hedge-fund jobs, that's easy as crap, but there are few good ones and, besides, I like technology a lot better than finance.) Our short list is SF, Austin, Boston, but not limited to those 3 places by any means.

zwegner 13y ago
WRT Scala, of course I don't know much about it, but it just seems way too complicated for its own good. It's like the C++ of functional programming. I don't really want to invest that much time in it just to become somewhat fluent, and then trying to convince others to do so is pretty much a non-starter. I'm in Austin, and it's pretty nice. I imagine you know enough about the tech scene already (perhaps more than me?). There are lots of opportunities, but the "good" software jobs are rather elusive (especially for a college dropout like myself).
pnathan 13y ago
FYI, Seattle, and too a small extent, Portland have a tech scene. But you probably have to like the PNW.
- rdouble 13y ago
  Portland has Galois, which may be up his alley.
Schwolop 13y ago
Send an email to Yanis Varoufakis @ Valve. He's the economics guy doing analysis of in-game economies and applying various machine learning techniques to determine pricing strategies, etc. I suspect even if that doesn't appeal, there'd be a bunch of interesting work that could use someone with your background.
- dpritchett 13y ago
  Wow, that's a great suggestion. Valve + finance + ML. I can't imagine a better fit off the top of my head.