Remember that Banks/Financial Firms/Investment Banks were among the first big uses of punch card readers, mainframes, cobol, C, C++ (and OOP), VBA, Java.. I'm not saying if I like any of those languages (my presence on this list should give a clue how I feel) but investment banks picking up FP and Haskell bodes quite well for Haskell in the future.
Max On Aug 10, 2010, at 12:59 AM, Tom Hawkins wrote: >> Good, we need more functional programmers actually solving real >> problems. But please put your skills to work in an industry other >> than investment banking. > > I've received a lot mail on this comment; mostly positive. Here's one > from someone who wishes to remain anonymous: > >> First of all I would like to say that I like your work regarding e.g. >> Atom. Second, I would like to know what exactly is bad about a Haskell >> job in investment banking as a lot of good programmers work in this >> industry. > > It's disproportionate. 95% of the job offerings in functional > programming are with investment firms. I believe investment banking > is important, but does it really need to dominate a large percentage > of the world's top tier programmers? Is computing the risk of > derivative contracts more important than pursuing sustainable energy, > new drug discovery, improving crop yields, etc. Some will argue > investment banking enables all of these things -- and I'm sure many > people in the industry go to work everyday feeling proud of their > contributions. But I just think most of this talent is going in to > improve the bottom line and little else. > > (Yes, I realize that's were the money is, and that's who's hiring. > Actually I'm very glad. Investment banking is the first industry to > adopt functional programming on a large scale. And others will > follow.) > > -Tom > _______________________________________________ > Haskell-Cafe mailing list > Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
