Yeah, you're being very ungenerous. Just for example, it's not negative to say that startups have the power to make their own language choices. I've never thou

Yeah, you're being very ungenerous. Just for example, it's not negative to say that startups have the power to make their own language choices. I've never thought an accurate description of the current environment and the challenges around changing it are a pessimistic view of things. Nor optimistic. Just realistic. I prefer realism. Is that bad? If you want to see it as negativity, I think that says something more about you than me. One of the reason I described all of those things AND asked questions is because I was hoping someone would actually come back with some stories about how they have overcome those challenges. Saying that Java is still the most popular programming language only because people haven't tried enough seems to me to be both inaccurate and dishonest, and does nothing to help change that. Clearly what we've done in the past has changed nothing. Time to look at what we missed and to try something other than "just do it". If we really do want to use better programming languages and techniques (I'm pretty into TDD myself) then it's very important to understand what management thinks about those ideas and why, and how we might influence the real decision makers. I've tried the wrong way enough times in my career to to understand the right way. Selling an idea to upper management usually has to come with low risk and a guaranteed return on investment. That's neither optimistic nor pessimistic, neither positive nor negative. It's just the simple truth. Don't kill the messenger.