[alttab]

Interestingly enough, in both the start up and corporate world I've seen hiring when the developer has NO skill in the language. This was true about Java, this was true about Ruby. This was true about python...

I think what would be a more interesting analysis is what cohort pre-selects themselves to functional languages, or projects where that technology is used? Out of all the software today, where is the most prominent functional code use and why?

[walshemj]

That's what happened at my first job hired as a research assistant at a world leading research place.

My instructions where Keith will give you an hours instruction on how to use the PDP there is a book on fortan in the company library go and learn it.

Oh BTW that was leaving high school with 5 O Levels

[perturbation]

What is an O Level?

[hga]

If you're familiar with the Harry Potterverse, NEWTS are modeled on O Levels. Perhaps a bit like US Advanced Placement courses and tests, but much more institutionalized, and I gather they're part of how the U.K. university system can get away with 3 year bachelor's degrees.

I once worked with a Jamaican who'd earned several O Levels (Caribbean counties had their own versions of them modeled on the British system), he was very smart and productive (and like many other good EEs had his own MOSIS chip to flash).

Hearing someone got 5 O Levels immediately causes my talent antennae to twitch ^_^, and I'm not surprised he picked up FORTRAN easily (then again, I found it very easy to learn starting a couple of years earlier than walshemj, and I'll bet with quite a bit less mathematical maturity, just Algebra I and Geometry, with concurrent Algebra II, but all taught by very good to excellent teachers).

[ZeroGravitas]

I think you are confusing O-levels and A-levels. O = Ordinary, A = Advanced, generally people going on to University would do A-levels, so leaving to get a job with only O-levels might be roughly equivalent to having a High School Diploma I think.

[walshemj]

Think professional apprentice / associate professional entry point.

Now a lot of jobs that where available to school leavers are graduate entry - talk about grade inflation :-)

[hga]

Oops, you're right!

So change O -> A in the above, and O-Levels in the Potterverse correspond to OWLs.

[DanBC]

An O level is an obsolete English qualification. They got replaced by GCSEs.

The system used to be O levels ("ordinary") for high achievers, and CSE ("certificate of secondary education") for the rest. Both of those were replaced in about 1986/1987 with GCSEs. These are taken by school children at age 16 at the end of their secondary education.

They are followed by A (advanced) levels or other further education college course.

[tormeh]

Compilers are well-suited for functional programming, which is why language designers seem to love it. Looping is almost never natural in a compiler. It's always recursion through trees of some sort.

I guess functional programming maps nicely to problems that do not simulate something through time and which primary work is not IO.