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Comment by phoe-krk | Hacker News Reader

> No one on our team is an Erlang expert, and we have had trouble debugging downtime and performance problems. So, we decided to rewrite it in Python, the de-facto language at Mixpanel.

So they have changed the language to suit the programmers instead of changing programmers to suit the language.

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>Pick a language that has limited programmers, bring programmers from around the country, pay them well beyond 6 figures so they don't leave and have a crisis every time a programmer leaves.

>Go with a mainstream language that they teach every CS kid and has every googable question imaginable in SO, hire 1 experienced programmer to manage a bunch of post-college-kids.

There are lots of good reasons to pick a language with a strong community. Once in a while, I hear people recommend obscure languages(or up-and-coming), and I think- that is going to be expensive to maintain.

You do not need a large team of Erlang developers though, a much smaller team can hold the project afloat, even hire consultants to fix it and leave it for a few years. Also Erlang dev salaries aren't that stellar, just average what you'd pay a Python or a Java person.

it's almost impossible to find Erland dev in my country :D

of course we can have someone learn and then teach to the rest of the team but why bother doing that when you can select another language where it's a lot easier to hire

A very reasonable thing to do.

Kind of a silly thing to even write about, though. The title makes it seem like the reason had something to do with the two languages, not that the developers knew one language and not the other.

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