For a web development project you're not really doing much programming (in a sense, I'm not saying you're not a "real" programmer -- you are! no need for gate k

For a web development project you're not really doing much programming (in a sense, I'm not saying you're not a "real" programmer -- you are! no need for gate keeping). Your job is to translate business requirements (crappy, vague language) into code (less crappy, more specific language). In this sense of "programming," you don't need to make a whole lot of choices! Use a framework where all of the details are already thought out and you can spend time doing the translation work you're doing. There are a thousand and one frameworks. You're going to pick one and you're going to learn it. And you will get on with your life. The only thing that matters when picking a framework is whether you feel motivated to learn it. Figure out what motivates you: is it a popular framework with lots of users so you have plenty of people you can ask for help? Is it a framework that you have to use because your IT department controls what infrastructure or languages you can use? Don't spend too much time worrying about which framework is best. That's not your job: you're translating requirements into code. Get that done and people will give you praise and money. Game development? Use an engine and framework. Make the game. Same deal. Where it's a bit different is when you're building the infrastructure and tools. Not too many people get to do that. Keep your scope small and don't try to be all things to all people is my advice. If you're writing libraries: make it do one thing. If you want to write frameworks then that's all you're doing is making choices on behalf of your users so they don't have to: so make good choices, make them the default, and prefer convention over configuration. Update: clarified opening paragraph, don't want to come off as gate keeping!