Functional Languages in the Workplace

On a semi regular basis, people question why I choose to use F# to implement projects. They question why use a lesser known language when one like C# has a larger developer pool and is more widely documented. I explain to them my rational behind it, siting personal experience, and documented cases about others success stories as well. There is significant evidence showing functional languages can reduce commonly occurring defects due to their inherent nature of immutability provide easier support for scalability, and have a stronger type system allowing for more expressive code. There are numerous testimonials on the use of functional languages and their benefit, but after hearing all of this, they are still doubtful about even considering a change. Assuming this evidence is correct, the question of “Why isn’t this a serious choice for the majority of organizations?” continues to appear. During discussions about switching to a functional language, I repeatedly hear the several common questions and arguments for resisting change. Most of these embody fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Several can be applied to moving to any technology, and although they should be considered, they are nothing which cannot be overcome. Here are my responses to the most common arguments against change I receive.

Our code is already written in language X, and it will be hard to make a change

There will always be legacy code, and it probably deviates from the standards used today. Was it written in a previous version of the currently used language? Does it contain libraries that are no longer supported? Was it written in such a way that converting it to current standards is difficult or impossible? If the answers these questions is yes, that doesn’t mean that other projects suffer the same fate. Legacy code can’t hold you back from technological advancements, and it most likely doesn’t now. Over the last several years many software vendors have made sweeping changes to languages and technologies leaving them looking only vaguely like what they did when first created. The introduction of Generics, the inclusion of Lambda Expressions, and asynchronous additions made huge advancements in several different languages and greatly changed common approaches to solving problems. These enormous changes didn’t stop organizations from modernizing their many of their applications to take advantage of new features even though code written with them is radically different than in previously created applications. Radical shifts in technology happen all the time, and almost every organization shifts its strategies based on trends in the industry. Organizations which defer changes to their current approach often find greater difficulty in migrating the longer they wait due to the fact that they continue to implement solutions using their current approach. Mindlessly shifting from one approach to another is never a wise decision. That introduces chaos, but neglecting trying new approaches due to legacy concerns can only end in repeating the same mistakes.

Our developers don't know language Y. It will be too hard and costly for them to learn and migrate.

A developer’s job is to learn every day. There are new features to understand, new architecture patterns to master, and new languages to learn. The list is endless. The belief that at any stage in one’s career the road to deeper understanding ends, is myopic and ultimately an exit ramp to another profession or a stagnant career. Developer’s should be challenged. Organizations should push their staff to understand new things, and compared to the opportunity cost of repeating the same mistakes, the amount of time and money required to train people is often negligible, especially with tools like books, video learning, computer base training, etc. There are some people that have no desire to continue learning, and that’s ok. New development isn’t for everyone, and going back to the previous point, there are always applications in need of support that won’t or can’t be converted. Organizational migration to a technology is almost never an all or nothing approach, and some solutions should be left exactly how they are, because of the cost of converting them will outweigh the benefits. There will be people to maintain those in the long term, and these solutions cannot be the bedrock against advancing how other projects progress.

What if we fail and we are stuck with a language we can't use?

If an organization takes the leap of faith and switches to a functional language what is the probability of some failure during the process? The initial answer is, 100%. Everyone fails every day at something. Failure is inevitable. With this in mind, you’re already failing at something, so the question is what are you going to do to try and fix it? You’re going to create other problems too, but with planning, retrospective analysis, and learning from those mistakes, those will be solved as well, but ultimately the position you end at will be further along than where you started. A few years ago, I had a discussion with an organization about their development practices. They were extremely adept at knowing where their time was allocated: support, feature enhancements, refactoring, etc. When asked about their breakdown, they explained on average 30% of their time went to fixing production defects from previous releases. They were perplexed about why they were missing deadlines despite becoming stringent on code quality. I asked about their plan to fix it, and they responded with a few ideas, but their final answer distilled to, “write better code.” When confronted with the question, “What are you going to change?” they said, “Nothing. Changing the development process is too time consuming and costly. If we update our practices, we’ll fall further behind on our releases.” The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, yet several organizations believe they can break the cycle simply by standing still. If changing how an organization develops isn’t feasible, then changing what they develop with is one of the only few viable options remaining. It is much easier to change a technology than it is to change an ingrained culture, which is exactly why using languages and tools that enforce practices which reduce errors is a much more efficient approach than convincing everyone to work in a certain way. Most organizations resistant to change perceive technology migrations as a revolutionary approach. They firmly believe all use of a certain technology immediately stops and the new one begins, because it is much easier to think in terms of black and white (one vs. the other) when change is a rare and uncomfortable occurrence. Change to anything new should be a cautious approach and take practice. It should be evolutionary. Organizations should try several smaller variations of an approach, learning from each and refining their ideas on gradually larger projects. Embracing a adaptation and “failure leads to a stronger recovery” approach ultimately leads to a better outcome. It is almost certain moving from to a functional language from an unrelated paradigm is going to be difficult and confusing, but the fault does not lay to the language itself. As with anything new, the concepts are unfamiliar to those starting to use it. There will be mistakes during the learning process, and some projects will probably take longer than expected, but basing the long-term benefits on the first attempt to implement anything will show biased result against it, and with time moving to an approach which aids developers to make fewer mistakes and write better and cleaner code will save both time and money.

It's not widely used enough for us to find people to support it

My coworker recently attended two meetups concerning functional programming, each having approximately 25 attendees. After the first one, he decided to do an experiment at the second. He asked people at the meetup, “How many of you use a functional language at work?” and the result was astounding. Only one person admitted to it, and it was only part time. At a minimum, there are 25 people at each location that are excited enough about functional programming to attend a meetup on their own time on a topic which has nothing to do with the tools they use at work, and these people are only a representation of the larger workforce. There are many others that were either unable to attend, or were unaware of the event. There is almost no place in the United States that isn’t a competitive market for development staff. Large companies are able to pay higher rates and have better benefits which means they will pull the majority of the highest qualified candidates. Smaller organizations can’t offer the enormous benefits packages placing them in a difficult situation to fill needed positions. Picking a technology where there are fewer people to fill the role would seem to place those organizations at a disadvantage, but this is actuality in comparison to overall demand for those type of people. Looking solely at the number of potential applicants, the pool of functional programmers is smaller, but organizations using functional languages aren’t nearly as widespread, so they suffer less completion when searching for candidates. Furthermore, assuming the statistics surrounding the benefits of functional languages are correct, organizations will require fewer programmers accommodating the constraint of a smaller pool of applicants.

Conclusions

Functional languages can be an excellent fit for organizations, both ones starting development and others which have been established for a considerable length of time. Most resilience in using them comes from misunderstanding the benefits compared to the cost of changing languages. It is neither difficult nor time consuming to attempt to better the development process by focusing on tools to better aid the process.