<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">The hypothetical question was "Should I use language X to build my application?", or "Is X a practical / real-world language?". I.e., more-or-less the converse of the question we started with of "Is X an academic language?".<div><br></div><div>-kevin</div><div><br><div><div>On Feb 24, 2009, at 3:02 PM, Valentin Micic wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="blue" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div class="Section1"><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">If “I can easily hire someone” is an answer, I am not quite sure what would be the question, let alone a problem, if any.<o:p></o:p></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div><div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><hr size="2" width="100%" align="center" tabindex="-1"></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><b><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; font-weight: bold; ">From:</span></font></b><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:erlang-questions-bounces@erlang.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">erlang-questions-bounces@erlang.org</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[<a href="mailto:erlang-questions-bounces@erlang.org" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">mailto:erlang-questions-bounces@erlang.org</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b><span style="font-weight: bold; ">On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b>Kevin Scaldeferri<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Sent:</span></b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>25 February 2009 12:11 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold; ">To:</span></b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Christian<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Cc:</span></b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>erlang-questions<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Subject:</span></b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Re: [erlang-questions] The Beauty of Erlang Syntax</span></font><o:p></o:p></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div><div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">On Feb 24, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Christian wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><span class="apple-style-span"><font size="1" color="black" face="Helvetica"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; "><span style="orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-spacing: 0px; ">In a way, the research that lead to Erlang was about finding a way to</span></span></font></span><font size="1" color="black" face="Helvetica"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: black; "><br><span class="apple-style-span">making it faster to have low-skilled developers cranking out new</span><br><span class="apple-style-span">features. It certainly wouldnt be good PR if Erlang was a language for</span><br><span class="apple-style-span">highly-skilled developers to slowly cranking out old features.</span><br><br><br></span></font><o:p></o:p></div></div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">I wasn't in the industry at the time, but I'm not sure that the programming workforce of the 80's closely resembled the workforce of today (or the past decade).<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">But, really, one should ask, if Erlang was designed / evolved / selected with this goal, why is it that 20 years later most developers have never even heard of it? I guess one possibility would be to blame Ericsson and credit MS and Sun for why C# and Java are the languages of choice for companies who care more about how easy it is to hire an army of developers than anything else. There could be other possible explanations, though.<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">Also, you've exaggerated & distorted my point with your last sentence. Haskell unabashedly markets itself as a language for highly skilled developers to quickly and reliably implement new features. It is still unpopular. Most companies do not like the idea of using a language that requires them to find a top 10% or top 1% developer to work on their project. <o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">Of course, you might also have misinterpreted my comment entirely. I'm certainly not promoting this point of view, but just saying that to a lot of companies "practical for the real world" means "I can easily hire someone".<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">-kevin<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div><blockquote type="cite" style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt; "><blockquote type="cite" style="margin-top: 5pt; margin-bottom: 5pt; "><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; ">On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 18:14, Kevin Scaldeferri <<a href="mailto:kevin@scaldeferri.com" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">kevin@scaldeferri.com</a>> wrote:<br>It's kinda funny how often people think of things like reliability,<br>high-availability, etc. as "academic" concerns. An awful lot of<br>companies care primarily about how fast low-skilled developers can<br>crank out new features.<br><br>-kevin<o:p></o:p></span></font></div></blockquote></blockquote><div><div style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-left: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-size: 12pt; "><o:p> </o:p></span></font></div></div></div></div></span></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>