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I'm not convinced that using startups as a metric for anything programming related is a good idea. At least not startups here in the Bay Area, which seem to me

by sidlls 10y ago

I'm not convinced that using startups as a metric for anything programming related is a good idea. At least not startups here in the Bay Area, which seem to me to be very fad driven.

jrs95 10y ago
That is a good point, and it definitely is. But in this particular case I think it makes sense, although there's probably a "shiny" factor to it as well.
Cthulhu_ 10y ago
Today's startups are tomorrow's huge stack of legacy software that Nobody Wants To Touch Because It's Our Core Business though; I'd say Go is a pretty good choice for those due to its simplicity and shunning of 'clever' code. Companies like Paypal, Ebay, and probably a few others have (had?) a huge load of old Java code and only recently spent a lot of time cleaning that up (iirc Paypal went with Node, at least for its forward-facing things) I don't know how maintainable 10-year old Ruby code is though, on the other hand.
- sidlls 10y ago
  Today's startups are, mostly, tomorrow's failed businesses. The majority of the most successful startups of the last 15 years have generally used tried-and-true battle tested technologies in their successes: Java, C, C++ and PHP. This isn't to say Go doesn't belong in that list, but simply to reinforce my point that what startups are using today shouldn't be an indicator of high quality technology that can (or should) gain more traction and use in the future.
  - jpgvm 10y ago
    And Ruby. Ruby is basically the new Java. As in it's no longer cool but is considered battletested and is now at the core of 10+ year old companies with code bases just as old that noone enjoys working on anymore.
    - sidlls 10y ago
      That may be, in which case Python belongs in the same bucket. I'm not convinced, actually. Most of the "ruby shops" I know use it only for the most trivial of applications, being essentially rest-like proxies between clients and Java (or other language) services. But I don't know everything and anecdotes aren't data for sure.
- solidsnack9000 10y ago
  That legacy software has come out of the web or backend stack of startups? Most of Facebook is written in PHP but Cassandra is written in Java.

by sidlls 10y ago

I'm not convinced that using startups as a metric for anything programming related is a good idea. At least not startups here in the Bay Area, which seem to me to be very fad driven.

jrs95 10y ago

That is a good point, and it definitely is. But in this particular case I think it makes sense, although there's probably a "shiny" factor to it as well.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago

Today's startups are tomorrow's huge stack of legacy software that Nobody Wants To Touch Because It's Our Core Business though; I'd say Go is a pretty good choice for those due to its simplicity and shunning of 'clever' code. Companies like Paypal, Ebay, and probably a few others have (had?) a huge load of old Java code and only recently spent a lot of time cleaning that up (iirc Paypal went with Node, at least for its forward-facing things) I don't know how maintainable 10-year old Ruby code is though, on the other hand.

sidlls 10y ago
Today's startups are, mostly, tomorrow's failed businesses. The majority of the most successful startups of the last 15 years have generally used tried-and-true battle tested technologies in their successes: Java, C, C++ and PHP. This isn't to say Go doesn't belong in that list, but simply to reinforce my point that what startups are using today shouldn't be an indicator of high quality technology that can (or should) gain more traction and use in the future.
- jpgvm 10y ago
  And Ruby. Ruby is basically the new Java. As in it's no longer cool but is considered battletested and is now at the core of 10+ year old companies with code bases just as old that noone enjoys working on anymore.
  - sidlls 10y ago
    That may be, in which case Python belongs in the same bucket. I'm not convinced, actually. Most of the "ruby shops" I know use it only for the most trivial of applications, being essentially rest-like proxies between clients and Java (or other language) services. But I don't know everything and anecdotes aren't data for sure.
solidsnack9000 10y ago
That legacy software has come out of the web or backend stack of startups? Most of Facebook is written in PHP but Cassandra is written in Java.