Developers in the US who've worked on a successful Erlang project probably number less than 10. But the number of developers who've worked on a successful Java project are easily 100X that amount. With a much wider talent pool to work from the quality of the contributions should increase dramatically.
PG wrote that, "if a company chooses to write its software in a comparatively esoteric language, they'll be able to hire better programmers, because they'll attract only those who cared enough to learn it."
Can someone help explain this paradox? Is it just that there aren't that many great programmers out there, so Damien was forced to java or is he just taking the wrong route?
Yesterday was April Fools day. There is no actual switch to Java. The humor here is the obfuscated statement that fewer than 1000 developers in the U.S. have been involved in a successful Java project. Damien and PG are on the same page.
Developers in the US who've worked on a successful Erlang project probably number less than 10. But the number of developers who've worked on a successful Java project are easily 100X that amount. With a much wider talent pool to work from the quality of the contributions should increase dramatically.