7 ms·

Yes, (and so is OCaml) but less than in the past, mostly for specialized and older projets. Most engineers at Meta will not encounter these languages. It's cost

Yes, (and so is OCaml) but less than in the past, mostly for specialized and older projets. Most engineers at Meta will not encounter these languages. It's costly to integrate them with the internal tools and arguably not worth the effort. On the other hand, Rust is increasingly popular and well-supported and approved by the company.

deleted 2y ago
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wyager 2y ago
I think one of the most promising pitches for rust adoption is that it borrowed as much as possible from Haskell/ML without treading into the territory where it becomes "scary" for broadly-C-family language monoglots. A C++ or even Java programmer can look at Rust and think to themselves "this text has a comfortably familiar shape".
- kccqzy 2y ago
  You aren't hiring good programmers if they are intimidated by syntax.
  - nicoburns 2y ago
    The differences between Haskell/OCaml and C-family languages are much more significant than syntax. Rust brings a lot (but not all) of the richness of these languages while staying within a broadly imperative paradigm.
    - kccqzy 2y ago
      That's neither my point nor OP's point. The soothing feeling of "this text has a comfortably familiar shape" is entirely about syntax, and indeed is only a soothing feeling because such programmer has not seen anything beyond it and is unwilling to get outside that comfort zone. I do not hire anything who does not get outside of their comfort zone or who is intimated by syntax they haven't seen. If a programmer rejects Haskell or OCaml by giving me a good critique of say, Hindley Milner style type systems†, that's a good programmer I'm willing to hire even though I don't necessarily agree. †: I've been asked exactly this question during an interview: to critique HM style type systems. As a candidate I felt this style of questions gave me a far better way to display my knowledge and experience than Leetcode style questions.
      - perching_aix 2y ago
        > I do not hire anything Today's Freudian slip award goes to...
      - dataflow 2y ago
        Do you put any weight on any factors beside the technical capabilities of the tools you're working with? Like, say, how easy they are to pick up or use, etc.? The way your comment reads, it's like you're saying you'll never hire someone who rejects speaking to you in Esperanto unless they offer a good critique of its grammar.
        lovich 2y ago
        You’re on hacker news so Occam’s razor would pick the simplest explanation is which the latter
    - revskill 2y ago
      You do not need too much good programmers.
  - hamandcheese 2y ago
    I've encountered many otherwise solid engineers who are intimidated and/or put off by Nix (the language).
    - dartos 2y ago
      Nix is really weird and ugly tbf. It’s great at being a declarative configuration language though…. Even if it’s ugly.
    - IshKebab 2y ago
      I count myself among them. And I wouldn't say I am "otherwise solid". I am solid. Nix is just a weird custom footgun-laden language in a place where I don't want to have to learn a weird custom footgun-laden language. It has other serious issues too, like the fact that it is declarative makes discoverability extreeemely difficult. What does setting `foo: true` do? You can't go-to-definition on it. You can only hope it is well documented (it isn't) or try to find the place that reads that key ... somewhere... in all of Nix... Good luck. Hell even if it were a perfectly designed language (it isn't) I still would be put off by it because I don't really want to be a professional full-time packaging engineer. I think Bazel got a lot right by using a subset of Python. Basically nothing to learn language-wise.
      - instig007 2y ago
        you're not solid, by what you've just written here and in above threads.
        IshKebab 2y ago
        Care to point out something specific?
        instig007 2y ago
        The fact that you say that haskell has operators and that you look for a distinction in syntax for functions and reduced values in the expression-driven language would be enough to say that you opine too strongly about things you don't have a solid understanding of. The same applies to your critique of Nix. If you ever tried recursive overrides of declarative definitions in, as you recommended, a subset of Python, you'd never claim that Nix is a footgun-laden language.
  - wyager 2y ago
    I agree, but most programmers unfortunately are not good, so this is the reality we must deal with

deleted 2y ago

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wyager 2y ago

I think one of the most promising pitches for rust adoption is that it borrowed as much as possible from Haskell/ML without treading into the territory where it becomes "scary" for broadly-C-family language monoglots. A C++ or even Java programmer can look at Rust and think to themselves "this text has a comfortably familiar shape".

kccqzy 2y ago
You aren't hiring good programmers if they are intimidated by syntax.
- nicoburns 2y ago
  The differences between Haskell/OCaml and C-family languages are much more significant than syntax. Rust brings a lot (but not all) of the richness of these languages while staying within a broadly imperative paradigm.
  - kccqzy 2y ago
    That's neither my point nor OP's point. The soothing feeling of "this text has a comfortably familiar shape" is entirely about syntax, and indeed is only a soothing feeling because such programmer has not seen anything beyond it and is unwilling to get outside that comfort zone. I do not hire anything who does not get outside of their comfort zone or who is intimated by syntax they haven't seen. If a programmer rejects Haskell or OCaml by giving me a good critique of say, Hindley Milner style type systems†, that's a good programmer I'm willing to hire even though I don't necessarily agree. †: I've been asked exactly this question during an interview: to critique HM style type systems. As a candidate I felt this style of questions gave me a far better way to display my knowledge and experience than Leetcode style questions.
    - perching_aix 2y ago
      > I do not hire anything Today's Freudian slip award goes to...
    - dataflow 2y ago
      Do you put any weight on any factors beside the technical capabilities of the tools you're working with? Like, say, how easy they are to pick up or use, etc.? The way your comment reads, it's like you're saying you'll never hire someone who rejects speaking to you in Esperanto unless they offer a good critique of its grammar.
      - lovich 2y ago
        You’re on hacker news so Occam’s razor would pick the simplest explanation is which the latter
  - revskill 2y ago
    You do not need too much good programmers.
- hamandcheese 2y ago
  I've encountered many otherwise solid engineers who are intimidated and/or put off by Nix (the language).
  - dartos 2y ago
    Nix is really weird and ugly tbf. It’s great at being a declarative configuration language though…. Even if it’s ugly.
  - IshKebab 2y ago
    I count myself among them. And I wouldn't say I am "otherwise solid". I am solid. Nix is just a weird custom footgun-laden language in a place where I don't want to have to learn a weird custom footgun-laden language. It has other serious issues too, like the fact that it is declarative makes discoverability extreeemely difficult. What does setting `foo: true` do? You can't go-to-definition on it. You can only hope it is well documented (it isn't) or try to find the place that reads that key ... somewhere... in all of Nix... Good luck. Hell even if it were a perfectly designed language (it isn't) I still would be put off by it because I don't really want to be a professional full-time packaging engineer. I think Bazel got a lot right by using a subset of Python. Basically nothing to learn language-wise.
    - instig007 2y ago
      you're not solid, by what you've just written here and in above threads.
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        Care to point out something specific?
        instig007 2y ago
        The fact that you say that haskell has operators and that you look for a distinction in syntax for functions and reduced values in the expression-driven language would be enough to say that you opine too strongly about things you don't have a solid understanding of. The same applies to your critique of Nix. If you ever tried recursive overrides of declarative definitions in, as you recommended, a subset of Python, you'd never claim that Nix is a footgun-laden language.
- wyager 2y ago
  I agree, but most programmers unfortunately are not good, so this is the reality we must deal with