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Thank you for your input! I really appreciate it. If you don't mind asking me, when a professional like yourself chooses a programming language to learn, what

by mayermail1977 10y ago

Thank you for your input! I really appreciate it. If you don't mind asking me, when a professional like yourself chooses a programming language to learn, what are the criteria based on what you make your decision?

lsiunsuex 10y ago
iOS and Android are kinda a given. I personally prefer to use their native languages (Obj-C / Swift and Java) but that's just me not wanting to deal with interpreters and such from React Native, phonegap, etc... The native languages are perfectly capable IMO so no need to add another layer of complexity. Web development is a different issue; If the site needed chat features, I might choose a Parse server or integrate with Firebase or other realtime NoSQL servers. Some form of MySQL IMO is always a requirement as eventually, you'll want to run reports and such and still IMO there isn't a NoSQL server that can handle it better then an SQL server. Hosting is it's own animal - Rackspace, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure - pick your poison. If you need to keep server costs low and want to scale quickly - AWS. Don't need to scale quickly but need a load balancer / cdn / backups - Try Rackspace. Don't need a CDN? Try Digital Ocean. Tons of different price points; capabilities, etc... I've run sites on most and most can handle most projects; just depends on specific business needs and experience of the sys admin. Some don't like the complexity of AWS; some are ok with it. Some prefer DO; some want Windows servers (Azure)
- davelnewton 10y ago
  The point of React Native and the like isn't that the native environment isn't "capable", it's that writing and maintaining two codebases is a different type of complexity that isn't always worth the tradeoff.
ttyprintk 10y ago
You have a good chance of finding a generalist with 1+ years on each of those. None is too exotic or too arcane that you need a specialist. I'm consistently average for a consultant, with >10 yrs over ~30 options like toolkits, platforms, databases -- I don't do design or architecture. So, I myself don't often choose a new language or variation or toolkit; you show me the entry points and I problem solve from there. I've seen the side effects on maintainability and sometimes security, but never been bothered by escaping to a different language.

lsiunsuex 10y ago

iOS and Android are kinda a given. I personally prefer to use their native languages (Obj-C / Swift and Java) but that's just me not wanting to deal with interpreters and such from React Native, phonegap, etc... The native languages are perfectly capable IMO so no need to add another layer of complexity. Web development is a different issue; If the site needed chat features, I might choose a Parse server or integrate with Firebase or other realtime NoSQL servers. Some form of MySQL IMO is always a requirement as eventually, you'll want to run reports and such and still IMO there isn't a NoSQL server that can handle it better then an SQL server. Hosting is it's own animal - Rackspace, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure - pick your poison. If you need to keep server costs low and want to scale quickly - AWS. Don't need to scale quickly but need a load balancer / cdn / backups - Try Rackspace. Don't need a CDN? Try Digital Ocean. Tons of different price points; capabilities, etc... I've run sites on most and most can handle most projects; just depends on specific business needs and experience of the sys admin. Some don't like the complexity of AWS; some are ok with it. Some prefer DO; some want Windows servers (Azure)

davelnewton 10y ago
The point of React Native and the like isn't that the native environment isn't "capable", it's that writing and maintaining two codebases is a different type of complexity that isn't always worth the tradeoff.

ttyprintk 10y ago

You have a good chance of finding a generalist with 1+ years on each of those. None is too exotic or too arcane that you need a specialist. I'm consistently average for a consultant, with >10 yrs over ~30 options like toolkits, platforms, databases -- I don't do design or architecture. So, I myself don't often choose a new language or variation or toolkit; you show me the entry points and I problem solve from there. I've seen the side effects on maintainability and sometimes security, but never been bothered by escaping to a different language.