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Thinking of languages as hammers or screwdrivers is too simplistic. Instead, think of languages as platforms. Your productivity in any language is directly pro

Thinking of languages as hammers or screwdrivers is too simplistic. Instead, think of languages as platforms. Your productivity in any language is directly proportional to your time and effort investment in it. It's in your best interests to pick the language that's likely to thrive and spend time learning its ins and outs. On the flip side, betting on a horse that doesn't win could mean the loss of months or years of effort. This is why people evangelize the platforms they're invested in - convincing other people to join improves the health of the platform, increasing their return on investment. More adoption => more libraries => more projects => more jobs => more adoption. A virtuous cycle. This evangelizing can sometimes become contentious if others perceive it as an attack on their platform. People defend their language mostly because they don't want to see it lose popularity. If it did, their language's viability is threatened and their investment is in jeopardy. It's also partly because they've spent so working with this language that it's become a part of their identity. A critique of the tool is perceived as an attack on the person.

JohnFen 3y ago
I suppose my views are skewed because I have become competent or better in a large number of languages. I have my favorite general-purpose language, of course (it's C++-as-a-better-C), but I view choosing a language for a particular project to be an engineering decision that I make according to the demands of the project, not based on what language I personally enjoy the most. Developers do get emotionally invested in their tools, and I've seen an uncountable number of holy wars because of that. But all of them strike me as being ludicrous. If another dev uses a language I would not have chosen, that's not a personal affront to me. I assume they made an engineering decision that made sense for their situation. It's all good. > If it did, their language's viability is threatened and their investment is in jeopardy. I sorta see this, but in my experience, it's very easy to overstate this case. If a language is viable enough to develop in initially, it's viable. How popular it is or becomes isn't really that important except in terms of being a business decision ("is it possible to hire people in the future who know this language?")

JohnFen 3y ago

I suppose my views are skewed because I have become competent or better in a large number of languages. I have my favorite general-purpose language, of course (it's C++-as-a-better-C), but I view choosing a language for a particular project to be an engineering decision that I make according to the demands of the project, not based on what language I personally enjoy the most. Developers do get emotionally invested in their tools, and I've seen an uncountable number of holy wars because of that. But all of them strike me as being ludicrous. If another dev uses a language I would not have chosen, that's not a personal affront to me. I assume they made an engineering decision that made sense for their situation. It's all good. > If it did, their language's viability is threatened and their investment is in jeopardy. I sorta see this, but in my experience, it's very easy to overstate this case. If a language is viable enough to develop in initially, it's viable. How popular it is or becomes isn't really that important except in terms of being a business decision ("is it possible to hire people in the future who know this language?")