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The best stack for YOU to prototype is not the best stack for ME to prototype. It's whatever you are most comfortable in, and can move the quickest. It's the

The best stack for YOU to prototype is not the best stack for ME to prototype. It's whatever you are most comfortable in, and can move the quickest. It's the stack where you don't have to re-learn how to do things you know are possible. So with that in mind, it's probably not the latest and greatest technology (except if you happen to have been living and breathing it for the past few years). It's probably got some warts that you don't like but for which you are also very competent at overcoming. If you are leading a team and need to decide that for them, try to find out which stack each member has gotten the most done in (in current or previous job), and average it across the team. It might be helpful to set expectation that this is not the most glorious technological project of their lives but that the goal is a rapid developement project with the goal to replace parts with something more robust once they get validated on the product/user side.

kvnhn 6y ago
Absolutely this. Prototyping a project in a new (to you) language/stack only serves one real purpose: to get comfortable in said language/stack. If your goal is to get a working product quickly, with as few hiccups as possible, your comfort zone is your friend.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  That depends a lot on both the size of the project and the domain.
brundolf 6y ago
The OP acknowledged this and said they specifically want to hear what others like to use anyway
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  My pet peeve: Go on Youtube to search for camera reviews. At the end of the review "The best camera is the one that you have". Well, no shit, I came here to get your opinion.
alephu5 6y ago
Your answer would make sense if the OP were asking what stack to use for project X, but they're asking what stack _to learn_ and familiarise themselves with in preparation for whichever project next comes up.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
This is some of the worst development advice I've ever received. Ten years ago, I was most comfortable with Flash, C and Objective C. Wow am I glad I learned JavaScript in 2012/2013. A few years later, I was most comfortable building web servers with Node/Express. Once again, wow am I glad I learned RoR and then Elixir/Phoenix instead of halting my education and sticking with what I was most comfortable with back then. It's been a huge productivity boost in multiple domains.
- tbronchain 6y ago
  Thanks, this is exactly the point of this post! My personal developer stack is getting slightly dated as my main focus over the past few years has been onto dev/sysops, seeing tons of new exotic tech being used now and then. I am really open on learning something new today if it can help me be more efficient in building my ideas in the future!
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  I didn’t take that comment as “don’t learn” but rather use what you know well for prototyping
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    To clarify, using what I already knew well was a mistake that greatly slowed down my prototyping on many occasions. There is a local maxima around what you already know due to the cost of learning something else, but it's much shallower one than many, including my past self would have guessed.
    - quickthrower2 6y ago
      Interesting take. I’ll think about this for my next project! With web there are a lot of transferable skills: http, DOM, chrome debugging, general problem solving etc. so there is that too. If I try nextjs and it does something odd I can still debug it.
- unionpivo 6y ago

kvnhn 6y ago

Absolutely this. Prototyping a project in a new (to you) language/stack only serves one real purpose: to get comfortable in said language/stack. If your goal is to get a working product quickly, with as few hiccups as possible, your comfort zone is your friend.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago
That depends a lot on both the size of the project and the domain.

brundolf 6y ago

The OP acknowledged this and said they specifically want to hear what others like to use anyway

systemvoltage 6y ago
My pet peeve: Go on Youtube to search for camera reviews. At the end of the review "The best camera is the one that you have". Well, no shit, I came here to get your opinion.

alephu5 6y ago

Your answer would make sense if the OP were asking what stack to use for project X, but they're asking what stack _to learn_ and familiarise themselves with in preparation for whichever project next comes up.

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

This is some of the worst development advice I've ever received. Ten years ago, I was most comfortable with Flash, C and Objective C. Wow am I glad I learned JavaScript in 2012/2013. A few years later, I was most comfortable building web servers with Node/Express. Once again, wow am I glad I learned RoR and then Elixir/Phoenix instead of halting my education and sticking with what I was most comfortable with back then. It's been a huge productivity boost in multiple domains.

tbronchain 6y ago
Thanks, this is exactly the point of this post! My personal developer stack is getting slightly dated as my main focus over the past few years has been onto dev/sysops, seeing tons of new exotic tech being used now and then. I am really open on learning something new today if it can help me be more efficient in building my ideas in the future!
quickthrower2 6y ago
I didn’t take that comment as “don’t learn” but rather use what you know well for prototyping
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  To clarify, using what I already knew well was a mistake that greatly slowed down my prototyping on many occasions. There is a local maxima around what you already know due to the cost of learning something else, but it's much shallower one than many, including my past self would have guessed.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    Interesting take. I’ll think about this for my next project! With web there are a lot of transferable skills: http, DOM, chrome debugging, general problem solving etc. so there is that too. If I try nextjs and it does something odd I can still debug it.
unionpivo 6y ago