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It is not just creating a new language. In a company environment you see a huge cost when people want to start using a new language or/and framework. It comes
by ChrisCinelli 8y ago
It is not just creating a new language. In a company environment you see a huge cost when people want to start using a new language or/and framework.
It comes down to values and what push people forward.
I am not saying one language should be enough. I am saying that for example that even for a company that already has a library of more than a few components built in React a a medium codebase using it, starting using Vue will add a quite large cost. Even if a framework is 20% better in some metrics, having to rewrite some reusable components (assuming they were written well) in another framework is going to sunk a bunch of time. There is a learning curve that people need to go through. Hardly the first time you use a framework, you end up writing the most awesome code in that framework. There are bugs, there may not be a lot of documentation or open source libraries. From an engineering prospective is going to be fun and you are going to learn something new but from a business prospective it is rarely a good decision.
Same thing is probably true when teams in company with a large Java codebase want to switch to Scala.
On the other end when you have a 10x better framework or technology you are better paying attention and make sure you plan a transition sooner than later. For example, I think GraphQl is a order of magnitude better than REST when you consider a whole end-to-end system.
Engineers, especially the smart ones, get bored quickly. Inventing a new largely adopted language or framework is an irresistible calling from inside. Exploring new territories is also another source of growth. It is all about values and the way we go about satisfying them.