What language is the majority of startups using today?

#1

Post by rob » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 8:32 PM UTC

Based on what I can see, it looks like more and more people are switching to Python and Ruby from PHP.

What's your startup using and your reason for choosing said language?

Re: What language is the majority of startups using today?

#2

Post by zurla » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 8:51 PM UTC

RoR is great for making a prototype, but just wait until you try to find other good rails hackers. they're scarce.

Re: What language is the majority of startups using today?

#3

Post by adamdoupe » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 8:54 PM UTC

I'm currently researching Python with Django as the web framework. Coming from a decent size website in RoR, Django is looking quite promising. I'd love to hear what people's experiences are using Django.

Re: What language is the majority of startups using today?

#4

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 9:06 PM UTC

Python + JavaScript + Flash.

The server-side choice between Python and Ruby is completely arbitrary; I suspect either one could do the job equally well. I was swayed by the somewhat greater availability of libraries for Python, plus I thought it'd be easier to get Python programmers if we got big enough to hire, plus it's somewhat more likely that an acquirer will use Python than Ruby.

PHP or Perl could also have done the job equally well, but I figure that if I'm gonna code my ass off for a year or two, it might as well be in a language that I enjoy. I've written some decent-sized PHP projects before, I'm reasonably fluent in the language, and I just don't want to deal with its gotchas.

On the client side, your choices are much more limited. Basically, if you want to do any sort of rich embeddable widget, it has to be Flash. That's the only technology available on nearly every browser that isn't blocked by 3rd party websites for security reasons. If you want to do rich interfaces on your own site that don't run in a box, it has to be JavaScript.

Re: What language is the majority of startups using today?

#5

Post by thingsilearned » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 9:06 PM UTC

We spent considerable time testing Django, Plone (not really a framework), PHP, and Cake PHP. We ended up going with django (Python). Really quick to learn. There's some documentation lacking once you get really deep and start doing some crazy stuff, but its more than made up for by a very helpful IRC community. We love it!

Re: What language is the majority of startups using today?

#6

Post by epi0Bauqu » Tue, Aug 07, 2007, 9:08 PM UTC

Perl. Reason: I can build scalable things in it really quickly. For people deciding between different languages, I think the main selling points for Perl are a) most of the code is already written for you (see http://search.cpan.org/) and b) it scales really well (see http://perl.apache.org/).