[Haskell-cafe] Maintaining the community

[Bryan Burgers]

On 7/18/07, Martin Coxall <pseudo.meta at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/18/07, Jon Harrop <jon at ffconsultancy.com> wrote:
> > On Tuesday 17 July 2007 23:26:08 Hugh Perkins wrote:
> > > Am I the only person who finds it interesting/worrying that there are few
> > > to no people in the group who are ex-C# programmers.  I mean, you could
> > > argue that C# programmers are simply too stupid to do Haskell, but ... you
> > > know, there is another explanation ;-)
> >
> > To understand this, I think you must look at the number of technical users for
> > each language. There are a huge number of technical C++ and Java programmers
> > but a tiny number of technical C# programmers in comparison. The few
> > technical C# programmers are migrating to F# because it is next door and F#
> > programmers are better looking.
>
> Most C# programmers are (a) GUI programmers and (b) former VB
> programmers. This means they are *guaranteed* to be less attractive
> that the average C++ developer. I have proof. But it's too big to be
> contained in this margin.
>
> Martin

I heard that Fermat didn't even actually have a proof. You wouldn't be
trying to hoodwink us in the same way, would you? :)

I haven't been paying attention to the subject, but I suppose I should
pipe in now. I really enjoy Haskell. I'm probably like most people
here in that I like learning new languages: I've given Scheme a fair
shot; F# captured my interest for a while, and right now I'm toying
with Erlang. I've tried Python, used Perl for a job, determined after
an hour that PHP wasn't for me, and even looked at Ruby. The list goes
on. (Always, of course, I keep GHC on my computer.) But for work, I
use C#. And I, for one, am looking forward to C#3.0, because it will
be easier to apply my FP experience to problems when FP is the better
way to solve a problem. (You've heard the maxim that when all you have
is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; the flip side of it is that
when you've got a whole tool set including a screwdriver and you see a
screw, but your company only lets you use your hammer, it can be
frustrating to beat on the screw with the hammer.) And since I'm fresh
out of college with no experience, I'm neither in a position to even
suggest a language change in my company, nor do I have the experience
to move to the occassional Scheme or Erlang job opening I see (I don't
know if I've ever seen a Haskell job opening, and I'm guessing if I
did it would get snatched up by a more qualified programmer quite
quickly).

I guess the point being made is that there are a smaller percentage of
attractive programmers in C#; but it looked to me that people were
implying that there are /no/ knowledgeable programmers in C#; and I'd
just like to assert that maybe there are some that don't really have a
choice right now. :)

Bryan