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Comment by maz1b | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered a slight amount as to why larger enterprises (which have the resources to hire specialists) don't hire people with expertise in say things like Rust, or Elixir/Phoenix?

It's one thing to say that we want to hire commonly available developers like in Java or C#, but if you have a long term plan and execution strategy, why not pick technology that may pay off larger dividends?

ITT: I get why they chose Swift, it's Apple's own in house technology. Makes total sense, not knocking that at all. Nice writeup.

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It’s because Java and c# are so commoditised we don’t have to pay people as much.

Also it’s about short term balance sheet not long term product management in the SME and small SaaS space. I don’t think anyone other then the developers give a shit.

They do have Elixir positions, eg https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/details/200562288/senior-softwa...

Many reasons:

There are not enough Rust experts in the world for a typical enterprise to hire and benefit from it.

Elixir/Phoenix are not order of magnitude improvements over Java like Rust, they are marginal improvements. Enterprise don't care for that.

it sounds like you are asking why enterprises aren't choosing to write Rust code vs Java code. I wouldn't turn away a developer just because they had experience with Elixir.

It really comes down to whether there's someone making the case that a particular application/subsystem has specialized needs that would warrant hiring experts, and whether they can make the case successfully that the system should use technologies that would require additional training and impose additional project risk.

Until you are dealing not with enterprise applications but actual services, it can be difficult to even maintain development teams for maintenance - if your one ruby dev leaves, there may be nobody keeping the app running.

Even when you are producing services - if they are monolithic, you'll also be strongly encouraged to stick with a single technology stack.

No, I was making a point about if the goal is lowering resource usage, more throughput, concurrency, speed/perf, etc, a larger company can achieve that "unfair advantage" of things like rust or elixir etc because they have the resources as compared to SMBs or startups.

Of course, every company and org has to see whats best and feasible for them. Valid points you brought up no doubt.

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