Re: [Caml-list] how to encourage adoption of OCaml?

[Yaron Minsky <yminsky@janestreet.com>]

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I would take that study with a rather large grain of salt. The validity of
such studies depends enormously on the details of how the data was
gathered, and without digging into those details, I'm not sure it's much
more than noise, especially because the thing being measured (functional
programming jobs in industry) is quite small, and not a major part of the
survey. I don't know that one should trust this any more than one does the
TIOBE survey of programming language popularity.

My own experience points in the opposite direction of the data listed in
the study. It seems pretty clear from our experience in the hiring market
that people with OCaml in their background are in high demand, and that the
places that do hire people to program in OCaml itself need to pay good
money to be competitive. I know Jane Street pays quite well, and I suspect
that Bloomberg and Facebook are also compensating their OCaml-wielding
employees in a competitive fashion as well. Also, from what I know from the
banks that hire FP types (a lot of it in Haskell), the compensation their
is pretty solid as well.

y

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 6:37 PM, Markus Mottl <markus.mottl@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 7:11 PM, Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>
> wrote:
> > That OCaml is not resume-friendly is a myth that still spreads in the
> > academic world. Actually, it is hard for companies to find OCaml
> > engineers (it is currently one of our search criteria), and I don't know
> > anyone who was unemployed for a longer time. I'd guess that the demand
> > for engineers is bigger than the supply. Of course, this might depend on
> > where you live, and for what kind of job you go, and getting the first
> > position in a certain field is never easy.
>
> I agree that having OCaml experience on one's resume is not a bad
> thing, but that's because it signals general programming competence.
> There are plenty of shops that ask for FP experience, but on closer
> examination just do that to filter out weaker candidates.  The vast
> majority would still rather have you write C++ and Python.  It's
> always hard to find good employees, just less so if you are an actual
> FP shop.
>
> A fairly obvious measure for the balance between supply and demand is
> price.  E.g. the UK salary ranges in the following guide are probably
> not too unrealistic:
>
>
> http://uk.hudson.com/Portals/UK/documents/SalarySurveys/SalaryTables_2016_UK_IT.pdf
>
> As can be seen, functional programmers pay a heavy price for their
> preferences (if they actually want to use an FPL) and that's not just
> limited to monetary compensation.  If the above guide is of any
> indication, they rank near the bottom (below even VBA and HTML5
> developers).
>
> It's a realistic assumption that money and status are significant
> motivators for most students.  Having the choice between OCa-what? and
> Python, they will quite rationally choose the latter, because it
> promises an easier path to attaining their goals.
>
> The more interesting question actually is why the supply side is so weak.
>
> Regards,
> Markus
>
> --
> Markus Mottl        http://www.ocaml.info        markus.mottl@gmail.com
>
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