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Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

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Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#11

Post by benologist »

The one more prone to success is the one that has a better person or team leading it to success, regardless of what it's built on. I can't even imagine a scenario where users actually care about the underlying stack, especially in any significant quantity.

With web apps the languages are all doing much the same thing anyway - they're taking data from a database and shoveling it on to pages. They're all going to suck and hurt at massive scale, they're all going to be worse at something than some other language, it's going to be hard to find awesome people for anything, and harder still to find awesome people who have previous experience solving the problems you face, most of which probably won't even be platform/technology related.

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#12

Post by Sargis »

sktrdie wrote: post #5

The major thing that will influence the success of your Web startup is if you have fun making it. So you need to choose a language that is fun using, that will let you prototype things quickly and that you feel comfortable with. This language for me is JavaScript and so far all the other alternatives have been just a pain to deal with. Node.js is just fun and simple as it should. So if at the end you have a code-base…

A little off-topic: Doesn't it bother you that with Node.js, a lot of the basic functionality needs to be coded (even with a framework like Express), while a framework like Django basically offers almost everything that you need? I really love the simplicity of Nodejs, but sometimes I just want to get things done instead of reading source code and trying to figure out how something works.

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#13

Post by dkersten »

If every other aspect of the applications (including the teams behind them) are identical, then the language/framework which is the most suited to developing new ideas and features is the one that will be most successful. For example, if you were using (to pick an extreme case) Lisp and COBOL, the Lisp version would have the advantage because new features could be implemented in a DSL suited specifically to the task, while the COBOL application would take a lot of work to extend.

In real life, of course, the differences aren't this large and are usually overshadowed by some other differences (eg, competence of the team, overall architecture of the application, marketing.. etc) and the language difference advantage may be negligible in comparison.

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#14

Post by markerdmann »

Which version took longer to write? Which version has fewer SLOC (I'm using SLOC here as a proxy for code complexity)? Weigh those two factors, then choose the winning language accordingly.

I'm oversimplifying, but I believe the point is an extremely important one. We've all heard the startup lore that David-sized startups beat industry Goliaths by being much more nimble than the lumbering giants they're competing against. If you're a software startup, your engineering tools are your sling and stone: if your tools are good and you can wield them with expert precision, you'll be able to iterate more quickly, make your users happier, and outpace the competition sooner.

Yishan Wong has written an excellent essay about the importance of tools:

http://www.algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management-too...

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#15

Post by rjbond3rd »

hkr wrote: post #7
rawsyntax wrote: post #4

I think it influences success, but predicting that influence... is not easy

Right. Let's imagine that Facebook was written in Perl, YouTube in Ruby, and Twitter in PHP, do you think they would still be successful?

So you're saying those three languages are so defective that they would have killed the startups that used them?

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#16

Post by rjbond3rd »

rawsyntax wrote: post #8
hkr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Let's imagine that Facebook was written in Perl, YouTube in Ruby, and Twitter in PHP, do you think they would still be successful?

Facebook and YouTube yes. I am unsure about twitter.

Could you please explain?

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#17

Post by ratsbane »

If your assumption were true I'd guess it wouldn't make any difference. The problem with your question is the assumption that the two versions would be the same - unless one was a copy of the other or both were copies of a third. The original language or framework has a lot to do with how you look at a problem. A painting done with watercolors will look very different from done with oils, even if the artist and scene are the same. Someone might counter this argument by pointing out Heather Jansch's driftwood sculptures of horses, which are remarkably made of bronze - but most of the time the choice of tools and materials has a lot to do with the result.

Re: Ask HN: Could the back-end language influence the success of a Web startup?

#19

Post by issa »

That is like asking if the brand of spark plugs will effect the sales figures of an automobile. There are so many other factors more important than the backend programming language that it doesn't bear measuring. To name a few: marketing, financing, leadership, team...
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