Re:Elm changed my mind about unpopular languages
by wpietri on Monday February 19, 2018 @03:48PM
(#16415619)
By coincidence, I just had breakfast with someone whose company adopted Elm; they made a great case for it. I'm excited to check it out.
But I'd add that popular languages have related problems. Java, Python, and Ruby are all ones I've used in production, and I'd say every one has a big problem pushing the language forward. They all have failed me differently in that regard, and I'd still happily use any of them again in the right circumstances.
The talent situation is interesting as well. With a popular language I can find more people who claim to know the language. But of the people who show up, a lot more of them will not be particularly good. In practice, given the work necessary to get somebody up to speed on our domain, our chosen libraries and frameworks, and our own code base, helping them learn a new language doesn't seem like much on top of that.
The big things that keep me from picking novel languages for long-lived production code are libraries and production considerations. It's such a huge advantage to be able to download a decent library rather than having to code everything from scratch. And I don't want to be the company pushing a language into unknown performance territory. It's noble work, but it can be expensive and introduce a lot of volatility that I really don't need.
But I'd add that popular languages have related problems. Java, Python, and Ruby are all ones I've used in production, and I'd say every one has a big problem pushing the language forward. They all have failed me differently in that regard, and I'd still happily use any of them again in the right circumstances.
The talent situation is interesting as well. With a popular language I can find more people who claim to know the language. But of the people who show up, a lot more of them will not be particularly good. In practice, given the work necessary to get somebody up to speed on our domain, our chosen libraries and frameworks, and our own code base, helping them learn a new language doesn't seem like much on top of that.
The big things that keep me from picking novel languages for long-lived production code are libraries and production considerations. It's such a huge advantage to be able to download a decent library rather than having to code everything from scratch. And I don't want to be the company pushing a language into unknown performance territory. It's noble work, but it can be expensive and introduce a lot of volatility that I really don't need.