It's a trade-off to some extent. You can have more automation and less customization, less automation and more customization, or somewhere in between. A lot of existing tools for dealing with CRUD apps address a particular set of needs somewhere along that line.
Is functional programming really mainstream now? I think knowledge of its existence is mainstream, but interest in it still is not. Most people give me strange looks when I tell them my current programming language of choice is a Lisp dialect.
A big point that recruiters emphasize with a client is that they can bring in good candidates who otherwise would not have had interest in a position (and whether they actually fulfill this is not the point here). Since you found and applied for the position on your own, you don't necessarily fit this category, and you might or might not be able to convince them of your argument.
From what I've seen, people are angry at a certain subset of the Ruby on Rails community, but then they take that anger and generalize it to the Rails community or even the Ruby community as a whole.
I'm also wondering the same thing as others. What specifically made it worthwhile to make this a separate language, as opposed to a domain-specific language implemented on top of an existing language with an existing ecosystem? You could even enforce the usage of only a subset of the base language if you really wanted.
If you rent cheaply (sufficiently far uptown or certain parts of the outer boroughs) and live cheaply (this excludes a lot of dining/entertainment options but leaves plenty more), you will be fine on that salary.
I'm from Queens, and as much as certain people from Manhattan will make fun of it, many parts of Queens are decently priced and decently accessible.
If you really want to live in midtown/downtown Manhattan, then it will be quite tricky. Just rent would eat up a lot of your take-home income. You would probably need to find roommates or something.
