[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell in Industry

Ketil Malde ketil at malde.org
Wed Aug 11 03:30:47 EDT 2010


Henning Thielemann <schlepptop at henning-thielemann.de> writes:

> about functional programming jobs in investment banking ...

>> I don't think this is bad: having talented people recruited to work
>> on functional programming will improve the technology for all of us.

> I'm not sure I follow this opinion in general. Analogously I could say:
> Supporting military is a good idea, since they invest in new
> technologies.

Sure, if the premise is that investment banks (or the military) are evil,
then it is morally questionable to support them.  If these are the
major consumers of functional programming, one might question the ethics
of working on FP in general as well.

But as I interpreted this thread, the premise was not about the morality
of specific sectors, but rather that finance "takes away" too much of
the FP talent.  My opinion is that we should rather appreciate business
or organizations willing to fund FP - perhaps especially for "evil"
organizations, where funds would otherwise go to more nefarious
purposes.

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants


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