from Hacker News

If you were building a startup today, what would you use?

by akc on 3/13/14, 7:00 PM with 57 comments

  • by alkonaut on 3/13/14, 9:22 PM

    Again with the assumption that "startup" is synonymous with "web/mobile app". What about thick clients/desktop apps/consoles etc?

    If I were to start my career from scratch in 2014 I'd pick F#, and keep an eye out for Rust.

  • by gaoshan on 3/13/14, 8:47 PM

    So I guess the (currently third place) "Other" is mostly PHP? I know it's not cool but it still seems strange to leave that popular and frequently used platform out of the poll.

  • by mindcrime on 3/13/14, 9:32 PM

    Man, Grails / Groovy never get any love from these poll authors! C'mon, Grails rocks people... :-)

    Seriously, I switched all of our development from Java/Tapestry/etc. to Groovy/Grails a few years ago, and really couldn't be happier with the decision. Grails isn't flawless, but it mostly "just works" and makes my life SO much easier than before.

    No, it isn't the "flavor of the day" like node.js or what-have-you, but it works, it stays out of the way, and gets the job done. And it lets me leverage the decade plus of experience doing Java that I previously experienced. What more could you ask for?

  • by akc on 3/13/14, 7:23 PM

  • by wasd on 3/13/14, 9:08 PM

    I am most surprised by the number of people who want to use Go. It isn't that Go isn't a great piece of technology but I thought it would be really difficult to hire for and seems a bit overkill for an MVP.

  • by qdog on 3/13/14, 9:43 PM

    I find your lack of C on the back end...disturbing.

  • by mbesto on 3/13/14, 9:54 PM

    - If you don't know a web programming language, find the easiest one to learn (quicker to launch)

    - If you do know programming languages, use the one you're best at (quicker to launch)

    I'll refer to my previous argument for all of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6169120

  • by akc on 3/13/14, 9:52 PM

    I for one didn't know about Digital Ocean before I put this survey out, and now I do, and am really grateful as a result.

  • by stusmall on 3/13/14, 8:53 PM

    I'm surprised that iOS is winning out as much as it is on the first native side to build.

  • by drivingmenuts on 3/13/14, 10:12 PM

    Having nearly finished my first real-world project in NodeJS/MongoDB, I gotta say, it's better than sliced bread.

    Papa just found himself a brand new hammer. Now to go find some more nails.

  • by zequel on 3/13/14, 10:40 PM

    Disappointed Windows Azure isn't listed. Ignoring the anti-anything Microsoft crowd, it's a stable easy-to-use reasonably (at least competitive) priced platform.

  • by ilaksh on 3/13/14, 10:13 PM

    Pretty big bias issue with the choice of options. Would like to see a tally of Other broken down on the home page of results.

  • by carterschonwald on 3/13/14, 10:46 PM

    Haskell.

  • by omgitstom on 3/13/14, 10:13 PM

    Man, I would love to see this done yearly so we can examine the trends.

  • by michaelochurch on 3/14/14, 1:13 AM

    I wouldn't limit myself to one language or framework, in reality.

    Growing very fast? Python, with C for high-performance components. Python's got great libraries for everything, and hiring Python and C programmers wouldn't be hard because those languages have a lot of users.

    Growing typically fast? Clojure. Drop to Java if needed for extremely high performance demands, or if I need to hire fast.

    Growing at a leisurely pace? I'd be tempted to try Haskell (and possibly switch to Clojure). It's badass, it'd be fun to learn, and some of the smartest people I know are big fans of it. However, with the "leisurely pace" (R&D) I'd be tempted to hire people only as smart as I am and let them use whatever they wanted.