Arranging software development around a wide mix of programming languages and technologies offers both challenges and rewards. In this talk Ryan will explore the pros and cons that the 6Wunderkinder team found when working with over 10 different programming languages in a single product.

1. RADICALLY
Polyglot
TEAM

2. RYAN LEVICK
@itchyankles

4. OVER ten
LANGUAGES

10. Why?

11. Software
Crisis

12. The major cause of the software crisis is
that the machines have become several
orders of magnitude more powerful!
To put it quite bluntly: as long as there
were no machines, programming was no
problem at all…

13. …When we had a few weak computers,
programming became a mild problem,
and now we have gigantic computers,
programming has become an equally
gigantic problem.
Edsger W. Dijkstra

15. void quick_sort (int *a, int n) {
if (n < 2)
return;
int p = a[n / 2];
int *l = a;
int *r = a + n - 1;
while (l <= r) {
if (*l < p) { l++; }
else if (*r > p) { r--; }
else {
int t = *l;
*l = *r;
*r = t;
l++;
r--;
}
}
quick_sort(a, r - a + 1);
quick_sort(l, a + n - l);
}

16. qsort :: Ord a => [a] -> [a]
qsort [] = []
qsort (x:xs) = qsort less ++ [x] ++ qsort greater
where
less = [ y | y <- xs, y < x ]
greater = [ y | y <- xs, y >= x ]

17. Internet

20. New
Problems

25. Client Teams

26. Backend Team

27. OVER ten
LANGUAGES

28. Bash
Clojure
C#
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript/
Node.js
Objective-C
Python
Ruby
Scala

29. Trivial

30. Your
Responsibility

31. 1
2
3
4
5

32. Why?

33. We have to

35. We want to
develop quicker

37. We want the system to
run faster

39. We want to
be more
expressive

41. We want to
learn

44. Is this really a
good thing ?

45. Challenges

46. Deployment
Woes

47. Context
Switching

48. Jack-of-All-Trades
!
Master-of-None

49. Benefits

51. Value
Rigidity

52. The Fallacy of
General Purpose

53. The Spread of
Ideas

54. Avoid
Group Think

56. The Best
People

57. The
Right Tool
! for the Job

58. Happier
! Employees

60. Your
Future

61. Benefits of
Polyglotism

62. Be
Happy

63. Thank
You