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There's a deeply troubling and frustrating part of programmer culture where having a tool with useful features is a "status symbol." Especially when coupled with the fact that so many people view bug reports or design critiques as personal attacks.
Because FP languages often take roots from academia and therefore have careful written rationales about error handling and control flow, they often get really mired in this, "We are morally superior" pattern of thinking.
They also tend to be unable to even talk about their positive points without implying an insult due to the fragility culture of software engineering.
SV culture being a major driver of software culture also hurts our industry a lot. Folks are fragile because they're terrified of losing access to work.
SV encourages employees compete for compensation in zero sum games, and makes status signals a major part of hiring processes.
SV encourages employees compete for compensation in zero sum games, and makes status signals a major part of hiring processes.
Status loss is especially difficult for SV startup people because they're *not going to get normal wage increases* without changing employers. That requires status, something people have to work very hard to maintain, often in uncompensated ways full of personal sacrifice.
I'm not a fan of the "cancel culture rhetoric" (i.e., don't be a Nazi and be humble if you screw up honestly) but I do understand that lots of folks live in terror of a major career impacting event, because it's entirely possible it'll push them entirely out of the industry.
It's easy to sneer at this and say, "Yeah well James doesn't get his 4% raise over 150k/yr, boohoo." And sure, Fuck off James.
But an awful lot of people in the industry aren't rich family college grads anymore. And it's actually very dangerous to assume that they are.
But an awful lot of people in the industry aren't rich family college grads anymore. And it's actually very dangerous to assume that they are.
We've seen many people push to get into the industry. Not because they are hypercapitalist or because they're chasning prosperity, but because it's one of the few job markets visibly growing and that has been resistant to financial downturns.
Maybe the point of this thread is that *many* of the folks who act personally affronted by the idea Rust or Haskell or ML or Fsharp might be "better"? Well they have major risks to their life and career if you suddenly table flip the world.
Often we who can take the risks do. But just shouting or scowling at the folks saying, "Maybe I'm not interested in taking on the risk and work of a whole new runtime and language. Because I feed my whole extended family with this job" is insensitive bullshit.
