On Tue, 2007-05-06 at 08:19 -0700, brad clawsie wrote:

On Tue, Jun 05, 2007 at 05:53:33AM +0100, PR Stanley wrote:
>  Hi
>  BAE Systems which specialises in military technology is looking for 
>  programmers who have experience in C, C++ and Java and UML.

large corporations with significant software development obligations
are as interested in the market for software developers as software
development technologies and methodologies. regardless of the
viability of the technologies, there are simply more java coders
out there than haskell coders, and it is likely that given the average
salary and project quality that bae can offer, they need to be able to
access the broadest pool of applicants.

but there are also technical considerations. java has been in
extremely wide use for nearly a decade, as has c++. using these
technologies is a way to reduce risk. sometimes you don't want to
reduce risk, you want to embrace it in the hopes of creating a larger
payoff. one day the right kind of company may very well conclude that
the potential payoff of haskell is worth the risk.

You know, I remember seeing all of this back when the dominant language was C and C++ was muscling in on the scene.... The smug "nobody uses this new technology" thing. The "there's no career to be had in this new-fangled style" thing and so on. All of it. I'm tempted to quote something about history, learning and repetition now, but won't bother because I suspect most of the people in this mailing list know the quote and have learned from history.

--
Michael T. Richter <ttmrichter@gmail.com> (GoogleTalk: ttmrichter@gmail.com)
If there's one thing that computers do well, it's to make the same mistake uncountable times at inhuman speed. (Peter Coffee)