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Please don't do it, unless you know you are going to stay there (in the same project) for very long time and you know you can hire/retain and train new people in Haskell.

I work for a large MNC bank and in my prev stint with a different department, for whatever reason I had to inherit a not-so-trivial Haskell code-base which gave me really hard time. Although it was in BAU mode, maintenance was difficult and hiring was even more difficult, I couldn't even get help from other guys from different projects as they are all mostly Java guys, anyway I moved and I know the new manager is trying hard to convince his boses and business for getting fund to migrate it to Java.




I might know your bank, do you run three versions of Murex at the same time? They have a pretty strong Haskell team (though somewhat small, 10s vs 1000s of Java devs), but that's what's at the core of the article. The writer seems very keen about developing and coaching a Haskell culture. So, as you say...

> unless you know you are going to stay there (in the same project) for very long time and you know you can hire/retain and train new people in Haskell.


Unless there will be many capable developers who stay. If you're the single guy who has a clue then yes, don't do this if you don't have a reasonable plan for those who stay.

It also sounds like maintaining a haskell code base is some rocket science. It is not. There are both extreme, but also conservative ways of doing things, and if you pick the conservative, then the people staying won't have that much trouble coping.


Please don't get me wrong, I've been in programming for more than 13 yrs, started with C++ and moved to Java later in my career and that Haskell code is of top notch quality, it does what it was written for very well and if I remember correctly, it never caused any prod incidents, its just that the devs didn't stick around, one of them went to Uni and others to greener pastures and we found it hard to extend/enhance with new functionalities that business was asking for.


I am available if your company needs consulting services for Haskell. I can help with development, design, maintenance, and training. If you would like to learn more, please email me at consulting@jamesparker.me.


Thanks, I'm no longer with the project, but I'll mention it to the one who is taking care of it, but last I heard was they were looking to migrate to Java or integrate some of its functionalities to another system.




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