RADICALLY 
Polyglot 
TEAM
RYAN LEVICK 
@itchyankles
OVER ten 
LANGUAGES
Why?
Software 
Crisis
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…
…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
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); 
}
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 ]
Internet
New 
Problems
Client Teams
Backend Team
OVER ten 
LANGUAGES
Bash 
Clojure 
C# 
Go 
Haskell 
Java 
JavaScript/ 
Node.js 
Objective-C 
Python 
Ruby 
Scala
Trivial
Your 
Responsibility
1 
2 
3 
4 
5
Why?
We have to
We want to 
develop quicker
We want the system to 
run faster
We want to 
be more 
expressive
We want to 
learn
Is this really a 
good thing ?
Challenges
Deployment 
Woes
Context 
Switching
Jack-of-All-Trades 
! 
Master-of-None
Benefits
Value 
Rigidity
The Fallacy of 
General Purpose
The Spread of 
Ideas
Avoid 
Group Think
The Best 
People
The 
Right Tool 
! for the Job
Happier 
! Employees
Your 
Future
Benefits of 
Polyglotism
Be 
Happy
Thank 
You

Tales from a radically polyglot team