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YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

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Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#61

Post by chii »

codesections wrote: post #60

This serves as an interesting counterpoint to Paul Graham's Beating the Averages[0] essay (which argues for using a powerful programming language as a secret weapon to allow a startup to outperform its competitors). Reading this list, I'm struck by just how mainstream the languages are. I don't have anything against Python or Ruby, but it'd be hard to describe either as a secret weapon — indeed, about the only "secre…

the language isn't the secret weapon - it's the person wielding it. It's just that if the wielder is using a less common language, it makes the news.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#62

Post by zumachase »

chii wrote: post #61
codesections wrote: post #60

This serves as an interesting counterpoint to Paul Graham's Beating the Averages[0] essay (which argues for using a powerful programming language as a secret weapon to allow a startup to outperform its competitors). Reading this list, I'm struck by just how mainstream the languages are. I don't have anything against Python or Ruby, but it'd be hard to describe either as a secret weapon — indeed, about the only "secre…

the language isn't the secret weapon - it's the person wielding it. It's just that if the wielder is using a less common language, it makes the news.

Also there's a large selection bias: people using less common or more esoteric/demanding languages tend to be better engineers who have invested the time in learning something off the beaten path. That absolutely does not mean it's the right decision since most employees will statistically be average and you want to have a stack that appeals to a large enough talent pool.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#63

Post by cryptica »

dstick wrote: post #2

The title seems to insinuate there’s a correlation between a startup’s value and dev language. While I think our “inner geek“ all likes to think so - is that really the case?

There is no correlation. Success is 100% business connections. Even if the CTO was terrible, it wouldn't matter because the most talented devs would be applying to work for this hot new startup and would be able to work around all of the CTO's silly constraints. I have seen this over and over in my career.

The CTO imposes pointless arbitrary rules, tools and languages and then talented developers figure out a way to deliver value within those arbitrary constraints. Developers will use whatever language their boss tells them, then later when the project succeeds, they will praise that language, those tools and their bosses.

People will always praise the leaders of a successful company, no matter how incompetent they are.

People who succeed always think that it was because of good decision making across the board. They don't admit to themselves that the only decisions that actually matter are who the CEO is and who their friends are. Our system is crony-capitalism, no doubt about it. Nothing to do with value creation; the evidence is everywhere.

Any good developer who analyzes cryptocurrency projects, for example, will realize that there is no correlation between quality (or scalability) of the technology and ranking/market cap of the project. The top, most valuable project is Bitcoin and consumes the same amount of electricity as the nation of Ireland to process a measly 4 transactions per second. Anyone who thinks that Bitcoin is the most valuable project due to technical merit is an idiot. It's 100% network effects.

I can say from experience across different tech industries that the current market selection process works the same way across the entire tech sector, not just cryptocurrency.

Every time a project succeeds, the people who built it will try to claim credit for that success. The people who are actually responsible for that success (through their personal connections) will happily let the technical people claim the credit because it diverts attention away from the much more cynical and unjust reality.

Any attempt to insinuate that success has anything to do with choice of tech is either misguided or deeply corrupt as the dogma harms real people (who will be forced to use tools they don't like) and causes real loss in productivity.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#64

Post by 1ba9115454 »

I know a little about Coinbase. The CEO did the initial MVC with ruby on rails. He was somewhat technical so it was a natural choice.

Then they moved forward with ruby for the whole platform, maybe as that's what he understood and what was the alternative back in the day.

However for any of these businesses the language of choice if starting today for me would be rust.

I really feel you get a much more maintainable codebase than a ruby project,

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#65

Post by maxehmookau »

1ba9115454 wrote: post #64

I know a little about Coinbase. The CEO did the initial MVC with ruby on rails. He was somewhat technical so it was a natural choice. Then they moved forward with ruby for the whole platform, maybe as that's what he understood and what was the alternative back in the day. However for any of these businesses the language of choice if starting today for me would be rust. I really feel you get a much more maintainable c…

> I really feel you get a much more maintainable codebase than a ruby project,

As I'm sure you're aware, this is entirely subjective. I really feel the opposite.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#66

Post by onion2k »

codesections wrote: post #60

This serves as an interesting counterpoint to Paul Graham's Beating the Averages[0] essay (which argues for using a powerful programming language as a secret weapon to allow a startup to outperform its competitors). Reading this list, I'm struck by just how mainstream the languages are. I don't have anything against Python or Ruby, but it'd be hard to describe either as a secret weapon — indeed, about the only "secre…

There's a tendency to optimize for development speed in startups these days, which usually means gluing together lots of dependencies rather than writing things yourself. That pushes developers towards languages with well-established ecosystems.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#67

Post by angio »

csmattryder wrote: post #42
donw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this article[1] is still relevant. In short, if you go Microsoft, you know you're locking yourself into an expensive ecosystem, one with no viable open-source escape hatch. Moreover, you need to find developers that want to work on the .NET platform. Most of those people work in banking or in large organizations, and are unlikely to want to jump ship to a startup. [1] https://blog.jonathanoliver.com/why-…

An article from 2014? You should know things have changed since then, with .NET Core and the open-sourcing of most .NET tech (Roselyn, OmniSharp and the .NET Core tooling). No more lock-in with Windows Server, no more SQL Server. Bring your favourite Linux distro and open-source RDBMS. I left .NET for Ruby in 2013, and in the last two years, I've come sprinting back to .NET Core. Microsoft is definitely hot again.

I use .NET Core with F# on Linux because you get a reasonably good functional language with access to a vast ecosystem and first class support on all clouds. Thanks to Fable and Feliz, you can use it to write React applications as well.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#68

Post by nlitened »

codesections wrote: post #60

This serves as an interesting counterpoint to Paul Graham's Beating the Averages[0] essay (which argues for using a powerful programming language as a secret weapon to allow a startup to outperform its competitors). Reading this list, I'm struck by just how mainstream the languages are. I don't have anything against Python or Ruby, but it'd be hard to describe either as a secret weapon — indeed, about the only "secre…

Top-50 billion dollar unicorns are hardly _mainstream_. We might be witnessing the fact that these non-mainstream languages help beating the odds.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#69

Post by AlchemistCamp »

codesections wrote: post #60

This serves as an interesting counterpoint to Paul Graham's Beating the Averages[0] essay (which argues for using a powerful programming language as a secret weapon to allow a startup to outperform its competitors). Reading this list, I'm struck by just how mainstream the languages are. I don't have anything against Python or Ruby, but it'd be hard to describe either as a secret weapon — indeed, about the only "secre…

When he wrote that, he considered Python and especially Ruby as outside of the mainstream and a bit more powerful, too. The mainstream he was comparing against was Java.

I'd say the ecosystem has move considerably in the direction he advocated. Even Java has moved considerably from 2001 Java.

Re: YC Software Startups: Value and Initial Programming Language Used

#70

Post by btmcnellis »

1ba9115454 wrote: post #64

I know a little about Coinbase. The CEO did the initial MVC with ruby on rails. He was somewhat technical so it was a natural choice. Then they moved forward with ruby for the whole platform, maybe as that's what he understood and what was the alternative back in the day. However for any of these businesses the language of choice if starting today for me would be rust. I really feel you get a much more maintainable c…

Rust is a great language, but how do you scale a Rust team? It’s a hard language to learn without a ton of developers out there. I suppose you could hire C/C++ devs, but if you’re just making a fairly standard SAAS Web app, it might be hard to pull those people over. Rust feels like overkill for your typical Web service to me.
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