On Sunday, 3 September 2017 at 19:40:27 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:
Been there, done that. Decision makers rationalize any other
choice pretty easily:
In my fantasy, I'd be the decision maker. ;-)
In reality, along all my career, usually the decision as to the
language used was made usually by (non-engineer) management, or
sometimes by the principle developer by fiat.
And merits of the language was but one of many factors, but I
think the foremost factor was whichever language the decision
maker was familiar with, or enamored with. (In your example,
hence... PYTHON! I actually like Python, but I've only used it
for scripting purposes. Less than 1 kLOC.)
Often times in the projects I have been on, that decision maker
has long since moved on to different projects or left the company.
And the language decision is nigh impossible to change. Except...
On my current project, the original language was Object Pascal.
At some point in the early 90s, the Object Pascal code was
mechanically transformed into C++89 code.
Even though that was a very long time ago, there are still Object
Pascal idioms present in the code. Which are not idiomatic C++.
Semi-ironically, Object Pascal is still around, and has it's own
following. Although now referred to as Delphi or Oxygene or
Freescal. They're all Object Pascal.
Regarding the project language choice, the one thing I have found
consistent from all my projects is: picking a locked-down
proprietary language is invariably a bad decision. Languages
like PowerBuilder Powerscript or Forte Tool or Meditech Magic or
PickOS PickBASIC.
My apologies to devs that enjoy Powerscript or Tool or Magic or
PickBASIC. I'm not saying that those languages cannot be
enjoyable. The nature of proprietary languages make the projects
tied to them at their mercy.
Whereas with D, if I don't like dmd, I can use gcd, or ldc. Or
if D doesn't support my favorite platform -- obviously Amiga OS,
the one best OS ever made -- I could in theory do the work to
leverage D as a front end to my toolchain.
Hmmm, maybe that doesn't make sense. Sorry if I didn't express
myself clearly.
