> Now, if you deviate... to one of the new “esoteric” languages, you have to... reinvent the wheel in a lot of areas that you’d otherwise be getting for free.

> Now, if you deviate... to one of the new “esoteric” languages, you have to... reinvent the wheel in a lot of areas that you’d otherwise be getting for free. I think this is the key concern. The #1 priority is how quickly Engineering can respond to business demands. Maybe the #1 priority instead ought to be culture, and that can be a great approach for Mittelstand-style/small-forever/bootstrapped businesses. But for venture-backed growth-at-all-costs businesses? Porting functionality to an esoteric language does not drive business value. Complain that you have difficulty hiring because you can't find engineers who know the esoteric language, and you're likely to get pressure from your investors to make boring technology choices instead.