this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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Programming
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hahahah how to trigger a lot of people working with these pure functional languages (like me).
I've worked with both "normal languages" like C++, java, Perl, javascript (node + UI), etc... and then I switched to Haskell and Clojure. And our current production code is a LOT better than in traditional languages. In particular, maintenance is a lot cheaper that what I was used to when working with more traditional languages.
Regarding the community impact I would advise to use Clojure instead of Haskell (or Purescript, or Elm). Clojure is a nice middleground that has a huge advantage of being very stable (by that I mean, the code you write today will probably be very easy to deploy in 10, or 20 years from now).
Note however, the language alone is not sufficient to write good code, but it helps you choose better abstractions that will be easier to maintain. If you dive into the spirit of the language, you will have a better intuition and understanding about state management of big applications and will probably make more visible some design issues.
It depends on when have you switched from those "normal" languages to functional, and where do you work now. Java 10 years ago is not Java nowadays, and not Kotlin. These modern languages influenced by advantages of functional languages, and you can even write thr most of your code in the functional style.
Our company has some codebase in Clojure and Haskell, and it was a huge headache to find a substitution for a Haskell engineer when they left. There are so few experts on the market. But of course, if you're an American big tech company, you'll find an engineer.
And I'm not saying to you "hey, switch to Kotlin!" Nope, if you're enjoying what you're doing and it brings you money — keep going. But the sad reality is that it's much harder to find a job for a pure funcional coder.