> And yet, we embrace objects in our applications. Is this just fashion? I think that's 90% of it, actually. In no case in my life have I seen a company start

> And yet, we embrace objects in our applications. Is this just fashion? I think that's 90% of it, actually. In no case in my life have I seen a company starting a new project say "We're going to examine the available {programming languages, databases, operating systems, ...} and pick the one which is most appropriate to our problem". It was definitely never even considered after more than 3 lines of code have been written. Even upgrading from one version of a language to a newer version of that same language is, usually, like pulling teeth. Thinking back over the past several companies I've worked with, reasons for picking a programming language included: - $(first_dev) wanted to learn a new language - $(first_dev) didn't want to learn a new language - Company policy says we must use $(lang) (even though no other software runs on the same platform, or has anything at all in common with this new project) - $(founder) used to work for $(compiler_company) - We googled for a library to do $(task) and first one we found was for $(lang) I don't know what to call this, but it isn't engineering. My only problem with calling it fashion is that I'm afraid it would seem disrespectful to the fashion industry.