Yes, any server-side language will do. But when you read "database is the most common bottleneck", you could frequently replace it with "database is the least w

Yes, any server-side language will do. But when you read "database is the most common bottleneck", you could frequently replace it with "database is the least well understood component in the stack". As soon as you stop using the database as a dumb store, you start to realise that your db can handle a lot more than you thought. One has to go beyond what the average ORM offers.