Commoditisation and programming languages

Ruben Berenguel, Lead Data Engineer

whoami

  • Ruben Berenguel (@berenguel)
  • PhD in Mathematics
  • Lead data engineer using Scala, Python and Go
  • Right now at Hybrid Theory

Commoditisation and programming languages

But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. – Donald Rumsfeld

Wardley mapping

What happened between…

and this

? 1

1 →

And it’s not the force

It’s actually this

Having a map

&

Having a plan

Now that we are in a mapping mood, what is the problem space we want to analyse?

What are the

landscape and climatic patterns

of

programming languages?

This question is too large

Focus on figuring the axes first

What are the two extreme evolutionary stages of a programming language?

What are the two extreme evolutionary stages of a programming language?
  1. Just created. A toy. An experiment. An idea.
  2. Used all over the stack. Not shiny in a resumé.

In a normal Wardley map we would call these two stages

  1. Genesis
  2. Commodity (or utility)

Are they?

Who is the user?

Option A: The company choosing the language to use

Option B: The developer choosing the language to learn

Option A: The company choosing the language to use

Option B: The developer choosing the language to learn

Option A: Company

Commodity could mean:

  • Access to a large pool of talent (large market)
  • Access to a varied pool of talent (range of skills)

Option B: Developer

Commodity could mean:

  • Usability across a range of problems (generality)
  • Large individual demand (ability to choose)

Feedback loop

or

deadlock?

As easy as that? Teaching?

Open questions

  • What drives programming language adoption feedback loops, if it is not teaching?
  • Are there any other climatic patterns to identify in the programming language landscape?
  • How do programming languages decay?

Some Resources and interesting references

Questions?

Thanks!

Get the slides from my github:

github.com/rberenguel/

The repository is

commoditisation-languages

Further references

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