[Haskell-cafe] Employment

[Jonathan Cast]

On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 21:01 +0000, Andrew Coppin wrote:
> Paul Johnson wrote:
> > So next time I hear the "you can't get the programmers" line I'm going 
> > to respond with something like this:
> >
> >    "If you post an advert for a Haskell developer you will get 20
> >    applicants.  All of those people will be the kind of developer who
> >    learns new programming languages to improve their own abilities and
> >    stretch themselves, because nobody yet learns Haskell just to get a 
> > job.
> >
> >    "If you post an advert for a Java developer you will get 200
> >    applicants.  Most of them will be the kind of developer who learned
> >    Java because there are lots of Java jobs out there, and as long as
> >    they know enough to hold down a job then they see no reason to learn
> >    anything."
> 
> If this isn't an "elevator pitch" for using Haskell then I don't know 
> what the hell *is*!
> 
> Seriously, this is a pretty damned persuasive argument...

Not really.  My company *advertises* for Haskell developers, and then
when they come in to interview, informs them that the code base is
actually written in Perl.  Works, too --- we have several Haskellers
working here.  If all you care about is the quality of the developers,
and not their productivity once you've got them, you don't actually need
to let them use Haskell after the interview is over...

jcc