Poll: What languages are you using to build your startup?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127203

by jsjenkins168 • 18 years ago

24 34 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

davidw2• 18 years ago

Hecl, which is built with Java (not JSF or JSP) and Ruby.

dualogy• 18 years ago

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

C/C++ 5 points

Wow. I'm maintaining a math-heavy desktop app in C++ and it's killing me with its ponderousness. Who the eff is using C++ for web development?

jsjenkins1686• 18 years ago

I am very curious about the same thing. All I can guess is there are still hackers developing CGI based web services for their startups. But why...

nostrademons• 18 years ago

It's possible that they're building stuff with either a desktop component (RescueTime, DropBox, PikLuk) or a heavy algorithmic component on the back-end (I don't know of any, but then, I wouldn't...) Very few successful startups are only web; most combine a web aspect with some sort of domain-specific processing or data collection, which can be in any language.

There's code written in C and Ocaml in my current startup, but I didn't write it, so I didn't tick it off in the poll. But I could easily see us moving into an area where we'd want to do some back-end processing in a faster language than Python.

tx• 18 years ago

Why did you assume web development? Sure, many people here build web sites, but don't forget that such startups still represent a relatively small fraction of total amount of software written.

I am involved in two startups and both use C++.

1. Video codecs (encoding/transocing) and IP video streaming. This is for my "day job" startup where we do IP video security.

2. Pikluk Browser (downloadable from pikluk.com) is written in C++ because that project requires a fairly low-level Win32 hacking.

And even our Rails web application uses external C-libraries for image manipulation.

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

"Please only vote if you are actually using a particular tech for web development"

boucher• 18 years ago

"Who the eff is using C++ for web development?"

Google.

moog• 18 years ago

Ruby on Rails. It still amazes me that I can design, code, test and deploy even complex features in <= 1 day.

a-priori• 18 years ago

Missing option: Erlang

sanj• 18 years ago

With all of the hate, Ruby's still on top!?

I'm using it because it makes me happy. Not surprisingly, that was Matz's goal.

Why are others?

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Why bother hating a language that you never even use? That would be prejudice!

It takes a lot of training, practice, and experience to really hate a language thoroughly.

edw519• 18 years ago

Could the same thing be said for people?

ken• 18 years ago

I'm using it because it's what our founder started with. I joined knowing this because it's higher-level than most languages in use, and we've got smart people and no bureaucracy. That doesn't mean I don't hate Ruby, but I do hate it a lot less than Java.

In fact, I can't think of any case where a project I worked on used a language that I thought was the best abstraction for the problem space. It was what the founder thought would work well, or what the company policy required (I wish I was kidding), or what had bindings to The Library we needed, or had a compiler on the desired platform, or whatever.

When I was job-hunting last, I found zero Lisp jobs in Seattle, and wasn't ready to start my own yet (and really don't want to move to Boston). Next time, I will be, and I'll probably use Lisp exclusively.

Maybe it's time for a "I wish we were using ..." follow-up survey.

brianm• 18 years ago

Missing option, Java.

jsjenkins1686• 18 years ago

EDIT: Added. Can be a catch-all for other Java frameworks not utilizing JSP.

shiranaihito• 18 years ago

Various other web-frameworks?

Out of those three, only JSP is like a basic building-block for web stuff.

It might be better to name only "Java", which would then cover everything related.

gojomo• 18 years ago

Many web services use servlets directly -- no JSP or other 'framework'.

Other web startups may use Java for internal roles other than 'serving pages'.

Still others may have an applet or desktop-Java component to their overall service.

ardit33• 18 years ago

There are many web frameworks in java that don't use JSPs. Wicket is a good one.

sovande• 18 years ago

Clearsilver

dasmith2• 18 years ago

How about databases. Oracle, MySql, Microsoft Sql, PostgreSQL

jsjenkins1686• 18 years ago

I thought that might be a bit outside this domain since they are not used to serve or generate web pages. But still useful to know, if someone else wants to make a separate poll..

systems• 18 years ago

Tcl and C the tools of choice for the discriminating hacker!

git and gitk are made in Tcl and C, and git is nowadays considered to be the new linux, so thats my proof

and why is VBScript up there!

run4yourlives• 18 years ago

>why is VBScript up there!

If you're going to build in PHP, vbscript/ASP would be the MS equivalent. Interesting to note though that nobody is using the granddaddy of inline web scripting anymore...

IMO, if MS would have open-sourced ASP when PHP started to come out, they would have that market.

davidw2• 18 years ago

git itself doesn't link against Tcl afaik. Still, though, it's a cool language that doesn't get enough love.

johnbuckman• 18 years ago

Another vote for Tcl...

jsjenkins1686• 18 years ago

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pxT7jIffmj3lGdXFcn9hK...

The data is highly weighted on certain languages, which is probably to be expected. I'm a bit surprised there are not more Arc, GWT, AIR, or Silverlight based projects going on yet though.

pg• 18 years ago

The bar lengths don't seem to match the numbers.

jsjenkins1686• 18 years ago

Ugh, looks like a Google Docs bug (wont invert the graph when you publish). Should be fixed now.

mwp• 18 years ago

We are using GWT ... in particular GWT-Ext which stands on the shoulders of the Ext JS library. It is an amazing environment to develop in ... and the UI is slick.

The google folks have done a great job putting the core of GWT together. For me, it is the most interesting framework in the Java playground for front end development ... the productivity gain compared to traditional java web frameworks is working out really nicely for us.

pc• 18 years ago

Missing option: Smalltalk

comatose_kid• 18 years ago

Missing option - Assembly language. Okay, fine - I'm joking.

sayhello• 18 years ago

that's not going to give you a very good representation of language use in the wild. the HN crowd that responds is probably pretty skewed one way or another. good luck

Poll: What languages are you using to build your startup?

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