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For majority of backend web project, in 2019, there should be nearly no technical advantage re: one language over another among all the popular ones. (i.e. the

by godot 8y ago

For majority of backend web project, in 2019, there should be nearly no technical advantage re: one language over another among all the popular ones. (i.e. the ones you listed: PHP, Ruby, Python. I would argue to use pure nodejs over Typescript though. Most people underestimate the dev flow speed it gives you to not to have a compile/transpile step. Refresh and rerun is part of what made PHP so popular years ago.) In short, use whatever you're comfortable with. If you're super proficient with PHP, keep using it. If Python is that language for you, use Python.

h1d 8y ago
> Refresh and rerun I don't understand how this isn't easy on other platforms. This is such a huge advantage of PHP that somehow isn't easy to do elsewhere. I am using pm2 to restart ts-node on file change to get around it but it does take a second or 2 or else I get hit with 502 Bad Gateway on browser reload which is sometimes annoying. rails also does it automatically but this is not instant and sometimes shows me an old version, so I restart the rails instance manaually in case when I want to make sure which is a sad additional step that no PHP dev ever does.
reallydude 8y ago
> there should be nearly no technical advantage In practice there is. Specifically in regard to parallelism and performance, which is important for any non-trivial application. You can spin up multiple Python processes or just re-implement in a different language, some nuanced part of the stack that you've crafted to bottleneck(s), or you can just choose not to use it from the start. It's not like you're going to design around the deficiency at all levels. You'll run into Ruby performance problems very early on without specific knowledge, so people just stopped using it for anything load bearing. My bias against Ruby is limited to PoC programs having memory problems and poor performance compared to virtually identical implementations in other languages, being a cultprit. YMMV. Perl is hard for people to understand, since every feature of the language is a landmine of obfuscation...php is getting there on it's own, to be fair. The idea that there should be no technical advantage is ignorant. There are choices that have been made and there's reasons for each. You don't run Python on stream processing with Flink because it's not suited for parallelism. Catching errors like a kafka broker disappearing, in PHP, is almost trivial like in many languages, while Java requires a custom retry method that requires intimate knowledge of how any connector works. Knowing the languages, PHP has some very compelling strengths, as does Java (performance and safety) and Python (generally consistency of implementation and speed of development)...I still don't understand why I keep running into rats' nests of javascript and other esoterics.
sickcodebruh 8y ago
I find that the cost of TypeScript's compiler more than pays for itself with all the other benefits it offers. It's to the point that I can't imagine working in JavaScript without it and I'm less happy working in other dynamic languages when I'm forced to. Refresh and rerun is great when you're developing but offers you nothing when you come back to the code weeks or months later. A good type system has your back even after you've forgotten how everything fits together.

by godot 8y ago

h1d 8y ago

> Refresh and rerun I don't understand how this isn't easy on other platforms. This is such a huge advantage of PHP that somehow isn't easy to do elsewhere. I am using pm2 to restart ts-node on file change to get around it but it does take a second or 2 or else I get hit with 502 Bad Gateway on browser reload which is sometimes annoying. rails also does it automatically but this is not instant and sometimes shows me an old version, so I restart the rails instance manaually in case when I want to make sure which is a sad additional step that no PHP dev ever does.

reallydude 8y ago

> there should be nearly no technical advantage In practice there is. Specifically in regard to parallelism and performance, which is important for any non-trivial application. You can spin up multiple Python processes or just re-implement in a different language, some nuanced part of the stack that you've crafted to bottleneck(s), or you can just choose not to use it from the start. It's not like you're going to design around the deficiency at all levels. You'll run into Ruby performance problems very early on without specific knowledge, so people just stopped using it for anything load bearing. My bias against Ruby is limited to PoC programs having memory problems and poor performance compared to virtually identical implementations in other languages, being a cultprit. YMMV. Perl is hard for people to understand, since every feature of the language is a landmine of obfuscation...php is getting there on it's own, to be fair. The idea that there should be no technical advantage is ignorant. There are choices that have been made and there's reasons for each. You don't run Python on stream processing with Flink because it's not suited for parallelism. Catching errors like a kafka broker disappearing, in PHP, is almost trivial like in many languages, while Java requires a custom retry method that requires intimate knowledge of how any connector works. Knowing the languages, PHP has some very compelling strengths, as does Java (performance and safety) and Python (generally consistency of implementation and speed of development)...I still don't understand why I keep running into rats' nests of javascript and other esoterics.

sickcodebruh 8y ago

I find that the cost of TypeScript's compiler more than pays for itself with all the other benefits it offers. It's to the point that I can't imagine working in JavaScript without it and I'm less happy working in other dynamic languages when I'm forced to. Refresh and rerun is great when you're developing but offers you nothing when you come back to the code weeks or months later. A good type system has your back even after you've forgotten how everything fits together.