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If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

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Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#11

Post by rmangi »

gaoshan wrote: post #3

So I guess the (currently third place) "Other" is mostly PHP? I know it's not cool but it still seems strange to leave that popular and frequently used platform out of the poll.

Anyone who would start a new project from scratch in PHP hasn't been paying attention.

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#14

Post by pjbrunet »

stusmall wrote: post #6

I'm surprised that iOS is winning out as much as it is on the first native side to build.

Well, I voted twice on the same IP so maybe the results are meaningless. But considering HTML5 > native, iOS is more like 1/4th of the pie.

Objective-C is not a language option, but maybe because it's not a backend language? If iOS/Objective-C people voted for C++, they only have 3% now. So ~25% people want a fantasy iOS app but only 3% know native iOS = Objective-C?

16% of people think Javascript is a backend language? Hope those are votes for Node.js?

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#15

Post by stusmall »

MaysonL wrote: post #13
stusmall wrote: post #6

I'm surprised that iOS is winning out as much as it is on the first native side to build.

I'm surprised that it isn't winning by a larger margin.

Why is that? My motivation for picking Android is the larger market share. Even if you have engineering preferences, to me what really matters is getting it out in front of a wider audience.

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#16

Post by lstamour »

wasd wrote: post #8

I am most surprised by the number of people who want to use Go. It isn't that Go isn't a great piece of technology but I thought it would be really difficult to hire for and seems a bit overkill for an MVP.

Depends. If what you need to build is actually a simple interface between database and front-end over an XML or JSON API, Go's not that much heavier than the alternatives, with the promise of more performance in the future and with less code than many other libraries require. Plus if you host on Google App Engine, it's free to start. Even the HTML templating has built-in context-aware output filtering for XSS prevention.

That said, Rails, or any language developers are more familiar with, can be faster. At that point, I'd argue even static HTML pages might be one of the fastest MVPs to put together...

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#17

Post by mindcrime »

Man, Grails / Groovy never get any love from these poll authors! C'mon, Grails rocks people... :-)

Seriously, I switched all of our development from Java/Tapestry/etc. to Groovy/Grails a few years ago, and really couldn't be happier with the decision. Grails isn't flawless, but it mostly "just works" and makes my life SO much easier than before.

No, it isn't the "flavor of the day" like node.js or what-have-you, but it works, it stays out of the way, and gets the job done. And it lets me leverage the decade plus of experience doing Java that I previously experienced. What more could you ask for?

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#18

Post by lstamour »

mindcrime wrote: post #17

Man, Grails / Groovy never get any love from these poll authors! C'mon, Grails rocks people... :-) Seriously, I switched all of our development from Java/Tapestry/etc. to Groovy/Grails a few years ago, and really couldn't be happier with the decision. Grails isn't flawless, but it mostly "just works" and makes my life SO much easier than before. No, it isn't the "flavor of the day" like node.js or what-have-you, but…

I'd also put my 2¢ out for JRuby. It's amazing how nice it can be to have Java libraries mixed in with Ruby on Rails, and your only penalty for it is a delayed startup cost (with potentially faster JIT to boot, and new Java 8 scripting performance to look forward to).

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#19

Post by snoonan »

akc wrote: post #10
akc wrote: post #2

results: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1fKVsAFT3nRVvlcJ74p0ZI2uqwDq...

tabulated results https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApqmTkgH6Ua_dEZ...

Watching these answers stream in on the spreadsheet really makes me think of what a realtime reddit or stack exchange could look like. Adding live interaction from observers (likes, comment streams, etc).

Re: If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

#20

Post by bitcrusher »

stusmall wrote: post #15
MaysonL wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that it isn't winning by a larger margin.

Why is that? My motivation for picking Android is the larger market share. Even if you have engineering preferences, to me what really matters is getting it out in front of a wider audience.

What markets are you trying to get more in front of? US? Europe? China?

What device levels are you trying to get in front of?

Android seems like a "no brainer" until you start looking at the details... For example, if you cut out all "cheap shit 2.2 android devices" and focus on new(ish) Android 4.0> things get REALLY murky... In the US iOS still holds a lead over Android in those markets; in Europe Android is ahead, but then you have localization to deal with.

Additionally, Android might have an edge in some markets, but the fact that iOS users actually PAY for apps also makes a big difference.

The point is that Android is a sensible choice but it's not an automagic choice, nor is it as cut and dry as it appears.

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