Re: Haskell in Industry

[Tom Hawkins-2]

Hi Eil,

Sorry, your email got lost in my inbox.  I hope you don't mind me
copying haskell-cafe.

> I saw a video of a presentation you gave at CUFP awhile back and was
> hoping to ask you a couple of questions.

> I'm currently a junior at UT Dallas and trying to figure out what I'm
> going to do after finishing undergrad.  For the past two years or so one
> of my main interests has been language implementations.  It's something
> that I'd like to continue to work with.  For a long time I thought I
> wanted to stay in academia and do research, but recently I've realized
> that I'm more interested in applying these advanced programming
> languages to real-world problems, such as what you have done with the
> Atom DSL.

Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
than investment banking.

>
> So, I'm curious about your experiences with functional programming in
> industry.
> Have you found it hard to get companies interested in Haskell?

Yes, it is very hard.  But it can also be very easy.

The best approach is to find a job or industry that does not already
have a large software  component, but desperately needs one.  This was
the reason Haskell was successful at Eaton.  Though Eaton is a huge
company, this particular division had surprisingly few software
developers, and even fewer managers who understood software
development.  In short, there was no one to question the move to
Haskell.

IMO, the biggest obstacle to Haskell are programmers -- especially
shear numbers of them.

> Is it difficult to hire good programmers for a less mainstream language?

No.  Every time I put a call out for resumes, I've gotten several
candidates that would have fit the bill.  The problem has been
convincing my management to interview these leads.

> Have you had any trouble training people to use Haskell?

Yes.  I find that out of 10 people I train, only about 2 pick it up
and run with it.  I'm starting to believe you are either wired for
functional programming, or you're not.

> Do many of the engineers using Haskell at Eaton have advanced degrees?

Actually most of Eaton's Haskell programmers do not have advanced
degrees; myself included.  In fact one of our most successful
programmers was an automotive technician in his previous job.  This
supports my hypothesis that your functional programming aptitude is
determined at birth.

Best of luck with the job hunt.  If by chance Eaton starts hiring
again, I'll give you a ping.

-Tom
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[briand-3]

On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 21:58:15 -0500
Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
> than investment banking.

+1000
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[Wouter Swierstra-3]

>> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
>> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
>> than investment banking.

There are lots of companies outside of investment-banking using
functional programming.

Bluespec, Galois, TypLab, are all serious Haskell users. Larger
companies such as AT&T, Facebook, and Google have all used Haskell for
various projects.

If you look a bit further afield, there are even more companies using
F#, Caml, and Erlang. I use Caml almost exclusively in my day job at
Vector Fabrics – which is poles apart from investment banking. (And
yes, we're always interested in hiring good functional programmers.)

If you want a FP job outside of investment banking, keep an eye on the
CUFP website and the FP mailing lists. Opportunities abound!

  Wouter
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[Jonathan Geddes]

> Yes.  I find that out of 10 people I train, only about 2 pick it up
> and run with it.  I'm starting to believe you are either wired for
> functional programming, or you're not.

Couldn't agree more. This is the usual conclusion I arrive at when I
find myself wondering why so many very intelligent people reject FP
when it's obviously (to my and my FP-wired brain) superior.

--Jonathan Geddes
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[Tom Hawkins-2]

> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
> than investment banking.

I've received a lot mail on this comment; mostly positive.  Here's one
from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:

> First of all I would like to say that I like your work regarding e.g.
> Atom. Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell
> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this
> industry.

It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
of the world's top tier programmers?  Is computing the risk of
derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy,
new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc.  Some will argue
investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many
people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their
contributions.  But I just think most of this talent is going in to
improve the bottom line and little else.

(Yes, I realize that's were the money is, and that's who's hiring.
Actually I'm very glad.  Investment banking is the first industry to
adopt functional programming on a large scale.  And others will
follow.)

-Tom
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[Lennart Augustsson]

Out of 10 people trained only 2 should do programming anyway. :)

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 4:58 AM, Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi Eil,
>> Have you had any trouble training people to use Haskell?
>
> Yes.  I find that out of 10 people I train, only about 2 pick it up
> and run with it.  I'm starting to believe you are either wired for
> functional programming, or you're not.
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[Lennart Augustsson]

But do you think there would be more Haskell jobs offered (in absolute
terms), if no investment firms offered jobs?
Is there some kind of quota of job offers that gets used up?

There seems to be more job applicants that job offers at the moment,
so I'm not sure what the problem is.

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> wrote:

> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
> programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
> is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
> of the world's top tier programmers?  Is computing the risk of
> derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy,
> new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc.  Some will argue
> investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many
> people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their
> contributions.  But I just think most of this talent is going in to
> improve the bottom line and little else.

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[Tom Hawkins-2]

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Lennart Augustsson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> But do you think there would be more Haskell jobs offered (in absolute
> terms), if no investment firms offered jobs?
> Is there some kind of quota of job offers that gets used up?

No and no.  Again, I think it's awesome an industry as finally woken
up.  I just wish the others would get with the program.
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[aditya siram-2]

Yes.  I find that out of 10 people I train, only about 2 pick it up
and run with it.  I'm starting to believe you are either wired for
functional programming, or you're not.

I disagree that only certain brains are wired for FP. I think your experience can be explained by people's inability to change in general.  I guess a good counter argument would be if the people who didn't take to FP were able to pick up imperative programming easily.

That said it's great that you were able sell Haskell to your company and follow through by actually delivering. It's really nice that the Haskell community has these success stories.

-deech

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[Max Cantor]

Remember that Banks/Financial Firms/Investment Banks were among the first big uses of punch card readers, mainframes, cobol, C, C++ (and OOP), VBA, Java..  I'm not saying if I like any of those languages (my presence on this list should give a clue how I feel) but investment banks picking up FP and Haskell bodes quite well for Haskell in the future.

Max

On Aug 10, 2010, at 12:59 AM, Tom Hawkins wrote:

>> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
>> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
>> than investment banking.
>
> I've received a lot mail on this comment; mostly positive.  Here's one
> from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:
>
>> First of all I would like to say that I like your work regarding e.g.
>> Atom. Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell
>> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this
>> industry.
>
> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
> programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
> is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
> of the world's top tier programmers?  Is computing the risk of
> derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy,
> new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc.  Some will argue
> investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many
> people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their
> contributions.  But I just think most of this talent is going in to
> improve the bottom line and little else.
>
> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is, and that's who's hiring.
> Actually I'm very glad.  Investment banking is the first industry to
> adopt functional programming on a large scale.  And others will
> follow.)
>
> -Tom
> _______________________________________________
> Haskell-Cafe mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

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[caseyh]

Of course Banks/Financial Firms/Investment Banks want software that is
correct, secure, and logs transactions.

Aspects are great for cross-cutting concerns like security and
logging; as in AspectJ.

For correctness, functional programming has that.

With monads its easy to add logging and security.

Something the BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation) has missed
entirely. :)


On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:05:50 +0800, you wrote:

>Remember that Banks/Financial Firms/Investment Banks were among the first big uses of punch card readers, mainframes, cobol, C, C++ (and OOP), VBA, Java..  I'm not saying if I like any of those languages (my presence on this list should give a clue how I feel) but investment banks picking up FP and Haskell bodes quite well for Haskell in the future.
>
>Max
>
>On Aug 10, 2010, at 12:59 AM, Tom Hawkins wrote:
>
>>> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real
>>> problems.  But please put your skills to work in an industry other
>>> than investment banking.
>>
>> I've received a lot mail on this comment; mostly positive.  Here's one
>> from someone who wishes to remain anonymous:
>>
>>> First of all I would like to say that I like your work regarding e.g.
>>> Atom. Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell
>>> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this
>>> industry.
>>
>> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
>> programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
>> is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
>> of the world's top tier programmers?  Is computing the risk of
>> derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy,
>> new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc.  Some will argue
>> investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many
>> people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their
>> contributions.  But I just think most of this talent is going in to
>> improve the bottom line and little else.
>>
>> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is, and that's who's hiring.
>> Actually I'm very glad.  Investment banking is the first industry to
>> adopt functional programming on a large scale.  And others will
>> follow.)
>>
>> -Tom

--
Regards,
Casey
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[Ketil Malde-5]

Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> writes:

>> Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell
>> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this
>> industry.

> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
> programming are with investment firms.  I believe investment banking
> is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage
> of the world's top tier programmers?

I suspect it is because it is an industry where software performance
matters. Doing things just a bit better than your competitors can make
all the difference (and a big difference) to the bottom line.  Thus it
is an industry that is willing to invest in new technology.

Most other industry seems to be conservative; nobody got fired for
choosing IBM, nobody gets criticized for choosing Java.  Being good
enough is usually sufficient, you don't have to be best, or even
better.

> Is computing the risk of derivative contracts more important than
> pursuing sustainable energy, new drug discovery, improving crop
> yields, etc.  

More important? - I don't know.  More willing to invest in software
quality - apparently.

> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is [...])

Exactly.

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

-k
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
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[Malcolm Wallace-2]

>> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
>> programming are with investment firms.

I'm not sure that is really true.  You might see more adverts for  
financial jobs, but often those jobs may be advertised multiple times,  
because different headhunters see an opportunity to earn a slice of  
the pie.  By contrast, non-financial FP jobs are likely to be  
advertised only once, or not at all, because candidates are easily  
found.

Regards,
     Malcolm

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[Ivan Lazar Miljenovic]

Malcolm Wallace <[hidden email]> writes:

>>> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
>>> programming are with investment firms.
>
> I'm not sure that is really true.  You might see more adverts for
> financial jobs, but often those jobs may be advertised multiple times,
> because different headhunters see an opportunity to earn a slice of
> the pie.  By contrast, non-financial FP jobs are likely to be
> advertised only once, or not at all, because candidates are easily
> found.

It could also indicate high turn-over for investment firm
jobs... (i.e. people get sick of it).

--
Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
[hidden email]
IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
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[Lennart Augustsson]

Rather than high turnover it indicates (in my experience) that it's
difficult to fill positions in finance.
That's one reason they are advertised repeatedly.

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Malcolm Wallace <[hidden email]> writes:
>
>>>> It's disproportionate.  95% of the job offerings in functional
>>>> programming are with investment firms.
>>
>> I'm not sure that is really true.  You might see more adverts for
>> financial jobs, but often those jobs may be advertised multiple times,
>> because different headhunters see an opportunity to earn a slice of
>> the pie.  By contrast, non-financial FP jobs are likely to be
>> advertised only once, or not at all, because candidates are easily
>> found.
>
> It could also indicate high turn-over for investment firm
> jobs... (i.e. people get sick of it).
>
> --
> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
> [hidden email]
> IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
> _______________________________________________
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[Ivan Lazar Miljenovic]

Lennart Augustsson <[hidden email]> writes:

> Rather than high turnover it indicates (in my experience) that it's
> difficult to fill positions in finance.
> That's one reason they are advertised repeatedly.

Because you can't find people that are good enough (in terms of required
skill sets, etc.) or because no-one wants the job?

--
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[Lennart Augustsson]

The former.

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 2:59 PM, Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Lennart Augustsson <[hidden email]> writes:
>
>> Rather than high turnover it indicates (in my experience) that it's
>> difficult to fill positions in finance.
>> That's one reason they are advertised repeatedly.
>
> Because you can't find people that are good enough (in terms of required
> skill sets, etc.) or because no-one wants the job?
>
> --
> Ivan Lazar Miljenovic
> [hidden email]
> IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com
>

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[Henning Thielemann-4]

about functional programming jobs in investment banking ...

Ketil Malde schrieb:
> Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> writes:

>> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is [...])
>
> Exactly.
>
> 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. That's not my opinion. Maybe the next financial crisis
leads us into the next world war.
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[wren ng thornton]

Henning Thielemann wrote:

> about functional programming jobs in investment banking ...
>
> Ketil Malde schrieb:
>> Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> writes:
>
>>> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is [...])
>> Exactly.
>>
>> 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. That's not my opinion. Maybe the next financial crisis
> leads us into the next world war.

But that analogy is a bit disingenuous. If investment bankers care so
much about performance (because a few milliseconds delay in transactions
can cost a lot) then getting a lot of talented functional programmers in
finance means there will be a good deal of work in figuring out how to
improve performance. Thus, anyone who wants performance will benefit
directly; regardless of attendant outcomes.

While the military invests in technology, they invest mainly in
technology that advances a particular goal. Thus, it's good for them to
have smart people if you would like improvements to that particular kind
of technology. (Which includes the Internet and natural language
processing ---for very militaristic reasons, both of them---, as well as
the obvious.) Investment banking isn't likely to lead to improvements in
zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms. If that's where you think we need to
be improving our technology, then having smart people in investment
banking doesn't help. But that's a different claim than the claim that
they'd improve performance or overall acceptance in the job market.

--
Live well,
~wren
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[Ben Moseley]

> Investment banking isn't likely to lead to improvements in zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms.

Given that an investment bank could (purely hypothetically of course.... ;-) use - say - paramorphisms as their fundamental approach to processing a deeply-embedded DSEL, I wouldn't be too quick to rule them out of improvements to recursion combinators...

And, more generally, Investment Banking has interesting problems to solve, smart people working there, and a willingness to use (and improve) cutting-edge technology.

IMHO, all of these are good things.

--Ben

On 10 Aug 2010, at 19:56, wren ng thornton wrote:

> Henning Thielemann wrote:
>> about functional programming jobs in investment banking ...
>> Ketil Malde schrieb:
>>> Tom Hawkins <[hidden email]> writes:
>>>> (Yes, I realize that's were the money is [...])
>>> Exactly.
>>>
>>> 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. That's not my opinion. Maybe the next financial crisis
>> leads us into the next world war.
>
> But that analogy is a bit disingenuous. If investment bankers care so much about performance (because a few milliseconds delay in transactions can cost a lot) then getting a lot of talented functional programmers in finance means there will be a good deal of work in figuring out how to improve performance. Thus, anyone who wants performance will benefit directly; regardless of attendant outcomes.
>
> While the military invests in technology, they invest mainly in technology that advances a particular goal. Thus, it's good for them to have smart people if you would like improvements to that particular kind of technology. (Which includes the Internet and natural language processing ---for very militaristic reasons, both of them---, as well as the obvious.) Investment banking isn't likely to lead to improvements in zygohistomorphic prepromorphisms. If that's where you think we need to be improving our technology, then having smart people in investment banking doesn't help. But that's a different claim than the claim that they'd improve performance or overall acceptance in the job market.
>
> --
> Live well,
> ~wren
> _______________________________________________
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