
Ask HN: Is long-term use of an unpopular programming language bad? - jupiter90000
Say I worked for several years building cool stuff at a job, but only mostly used F#, OCaml, Clojure or something. Will future employers think I would be a &#x27;bad hire&#x27; because I haven&#x27;t been coding in more standard languages like C# and Java that they might be using? I ask because I often see job postings that don&#x27;t say much about software engineering skills in general but more like &#x27;5+ years developing production C# apps&#x27;. What if someone is a great engineer but happened to work with a different language?
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chatmasta
I would be more concerned that you spent the last X years only using one
language, no matter how esoteric it is. If I had to hire someone who has not
used the main language(s) in my company's stack, I would prefer someone who
spent the last X years working in multiple languages, who should be more
likely to learn our language(s) quickly.

From a career perspective, working in one single language seems far more
limiting than focusing on some esoteric language(s). I don't even understand
how it's possible to spend five years in one language. On a day to day basis I
use JavaScript, bash, and python.

Focusing on _only_ C++ or Java or one of the "mainstream" languages seems just
as "bad" as focusing on one esoteric language. Try to pick a job where you are
exposed to multiple languages/paradigms on a daily basis.

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meric
I was extremely worried when I started reading your comment - I've been
working on python since I got out of university. Reading the rest of the
comment gave me relief - I also used Javascript, PostgreSQL, MySQL, CSS, Sass,
Less, React, Angular, bash, Lua, C, GLSL. Phew.

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peteevans
I'd say yes and no. Given that way that a lot of HR departments just seem to
run a keyword search for jobs and this often hits languages. This can work
against you. If the cool stuff is relevant then that will be good once you get
past the HR, if not it's cool anyway. However, unpopular languages can work in
your favour when the number of developers drop or the languages become more
popular, for instance Cobol was suddenly a goldmine around Y2K and who knows
where current tech will go. However, getting extra languages under your belt
is a good thing both for employability and learning new programming paradigms.

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BoorishBears
It's a culture thing.

In your cliche NET 2.x MS-only Windows-Only enterprise setting they won't look
down on it, but they might feel you don't have relevant experience.

In many other places people _value_ developers that have non-mainstream
development experience because it shows you're willing to explore as a
developer and won't shackle yourself to one solution to problems the business
faces.

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dougdescombaz
There will be a mix of bias and enlightenment. Much like the rest of life. The
exact mixture isn't clear.

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meric
You could go work at Jane Street, I think they use Ocaml.
[https://blogs.janestreet.com/category/ocaml/](https://blogs.janestreet.com/category/ocaml/)

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dmarlow
To some extent. I think I value what you've done with said tools more than the
tools themselves.

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auganov
You could always spin Clojure as JVM experience, F# as .NET etc.

