The recruiting secret weapon

At Nü Echo, we've been trying to fulfill several positions for a few months now. Our industry is growing at an incredible rate and there are lots of opportunities for people wanting to work on leading-edge technologies. We even hired a few head hunters to help us. But we've been unsuccessful. Until recently...

Last week, I published a post for one of our job openings, and we received several résumés. And from people who would not have considered working for us, if it was not for the word Scheme in the job description. People who have stable jobs in much larger companies.

It is well-known that great programmers are difficult to recruit. And that traditional ways of recruiting are broken. It is especially true when there is a shortage in supply of programmers, as we are beginning to experience right now. (New ways of recruiting are needed, and a new Montreal-based startup is innovating in this area, Standout Jobs. Their approach is really interesting, both conceptually and operationally.)

Great programmers are not looking for jobs. They already have one. And they don't want to switch from one Java job to another, unless they are dissatisfied with other aspects of their job. But a fraction of them would easily consider another job if it involved Scheme, Lisp or Erlang programming (or other non-mainstream languages like OCaml, Prolog, Haskell, etc.).

So I claim that it is easier to recruit Scheme, Lisp, or Erlang programmers, even in Montreal, than Java/C# programmers. Given that you use the right channels (Standout Jobs, or by advertising on group specific mailing lists/blogs). These languages are not only secret weapons for implementing new applications, but they are also secret weapons for finding new employees. I strongly advise new startups to consider these languages if they want to have an edge when looking for new employees. In Montreal, I am convinced that there is now a critical mass of Scheme/Lisp/Erlang developers to mitigate all the risks usually associated with the use of non-mainstream languages.

(I would even add that Erlang is getting more and more attention from the programming community in Montreal, and that it would not be that difficult to find really good programmers for new Erlang projects.)

Scheme/Erlang interoperability - the sequel

James Long announced today on the Gambit-C mailing list the availability of an Erlang/Gambit interface, based on an idea I had a few months ago.

The motivation behind this interface is to provide the ability to implement Erlang nodes directly in Gambit-C (James thinks that Termite is a little too immature to base any production code on, a view that I share). This way, you have the best of both worlds:

• Code in Scheme (for those who prefer its syntax over everything else, like me)
  
• Use the production-quality Erlang platform and OTP for the deployment of robust, scalable and fault-tolerant distributed applications,
  
• Access the Mnesia database from Scheme (this would need a more complex proxy node in Erlang, but this is certainly doable).

Once I have a few minutes of spare time, I will certainly try to add a few functionalities to the MSLUG web site (which is written in Erlang) using this interface. This will provide a great proof of concept and a great migration path from Erlang to Termite.

John McCarthy in Montreal

I just received an email from Dick Gabriel, the chair of the OOPSLA conference, telling me that John McCarthy (the father of Lisp) will be in Montreal for a keynote at OOPSLA 2007 on Wednesday at 13:30, Oct 24. Don't miss that event!

Work-life balance

Ben Yoskovitz has a great post on work-life balance. And he knows what he's talking about. He is starting a new company (Standout Jobs) and at the same time his wife gave birth to their second child.

I think one of the great things of having a good work-life balance, especially when you have a family, is that both aspects of your like can benefit from each other. Great lessons from work can be applied to your family life and vice-versa. Here are two that I find particularly important:

• Your family life needs projects. Short term projects (your next vacations, for example), as well as longer-term projects (buying a new house, planning renovations, etc.). This helps keep focus, create a family spirit (as opposed to a team spirit). And also to establish priorities, manage money, etc.
  
• Managing people is very similar to raising children. Every single book on management will tell you that. So becoming a better boss will certainly help you become a better parent (and vice-versa, of course). So take time with your kids, especially in their first fewweeks of life. This creates tremendous emotional links that will last forever.
  

I have four kids myself and a very demanding job. But I still find time for my personal projects (organize meetings, blog, etc). Of course, I have a good employer and that's a very important term in the equation. And my wife is very supporting.

Scheme developer wanted (alive)

Nü Echo is seeking a talented Scheme/Java developer (with a strong emphasis on Scheme) for working on a sophisticated speech-recognition grammar development environment based on Eclipse. Candidates should be able to work (at least) in French.

If you are interested, contact me (you can find my email address on the MSLUG website).

Article in Montreal Tech Watch

Montreal Tech Watch has published an article I wrote about Scheme/Lisp in Montreal. This is an attempt to create more awareness about our Montreal Scheme/Lisp User Group and Scheme/Lisp in general. Our user base has grown over the years, but new faces are always welcome, especially those with a startup mindset.

I'm on the map!

Montreal Tech Watch has published a map (a visual representation) of the web in Montreal, i.e. of people and projects known to MTW. Pretty cool! The map mimics the metro system here, in Montreal. I don't know on which side of the Rivières des Prairies I sit, though... (For those who don't know, Montreal is an island.)

Busy, busy, busy

I have been quiet lately due to an upcoming talk I will give at SpeechTEK in late August, and (as usual) I have to develop most of the material at the last minute. Even the software I will showcase is nowhere near finished, and I take 3 weeks of vacation soon. Arrrghhh.......!!

Also, I'm preparing a post for Montreal Tech Watch about Scheme/Lisp (thanks to heri for giving me this opportunity!).

So stay tuned and don't despair, I will soon write the sequel to my series on the implementation of tuple-spaces in Termite/Scheme. I have so nice things to say and a few examples to show. BTW, I translated most of the code to Erlang to make some speed comparisons, so I will write about that too.