Also, in general, for programming in the large, many experienced programmers, having worked on multiple large-scale software projects, tend to prefer statically-typed languages. We've found by experience that in such large-scale systems, major refactorings are much, much smoother and feasible in statically-typed languages (although unit and integration tests are certainly still needed). And a whole class of errors are eliminated.
I don't think RoR is trash, but if you were starting a large program that would be used across multiple departments whose in-house language was C#, it was probably the right call to suggest switching to C#.
Please note: I'm not a C# programmer, and have never done any work in C# (although I've worked many dynamically-typed and statically-typed languages, and have a clear preference for the latter for large-scale software projects). So this isn't something I have any personal investment in.
Finally, I do get it, working for these types of companies is misery for most programmers. I've worked in such companies. But in this case, the senior may have had a good point.
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>I don't think RoR is trash, but if you were starting a large program that would be used across multiple departments whose in-house language was C#, it was probably the right call to suggest switching to C#.
According to the parent comment, he was working at a startup that was in the "Quicken led start-up space". My interpretation is that Quicken was acting like an incubator, and he isn't working in quicken, and so the engineering teams are separate. Therefore I don't think organizational inertia applies here.
I’ve also had to explain why logging is a good idea and how to use SSH. What frustrates me isn’t that people don’t know these basics (nobody is born an expert), but that people get hired to do a job for which they lack core competencies. If your job is to fix engines and you don’t know what a spark plug does, you probably shouldn’t be fixing engines. This was at least an issue for me. I know people at Quicken proper who have told me even more ridiculous stories.
It’s a shame. Detroit’s got a lot going for it, but I think most of the tech companies there have some connection to Gilbert and Quicken, and no amount of coneys will get that taste out of my mouth.
"Delete your app and start over. Ruby on Rails is trash. Real programmers use C#. With C# you can create libraries that you can reuse across all your apps."