Ask HN: Is there evidence regarding PG's theory about powerful languages?

Re:Ask HN: Is there evidence regarding PG's theory about pow... by stray on Monday April 11, 2016 @01:04AM (#11469733)

You will find no meaningful statistical evidence because it can't be done -- programming languages don't write software. Programmers do -- and programmers are made of meat.

A bad programmer using Lisp will be less successful than a good programmer using PHP.

And startups almost universally (regardless of the back-justifications they come up with) choose programming languages based on fashion: Résumé driven development.

The successful programming language for a startup is one that the product can be built in -- and that investors will not be alarmed by. PHP would not be alarming at all to many investors -- so PHP is a decent choice if you intend to sell your company off anyway.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there evidence regarding PG's theory about pow... by dvirsky on Monday April 11, 2016 @01:43AM (#11469839)

Usually it's just one of the languages the technical founder is most familiar with. Mark Zuckerberg's weapon of choice before Facebook was PHP - which was one of the best options for web dev circa 2004 - so he just used the most productive tool for him.

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