Developer Wars

07 Sep

Posted by Andy Brudtkuhl under Development

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This is a classic argument that heats up about every year. It is also something I have participated in a few times defending and promoting the .NET framework as an agile alternative to J2EE or scripting languages like PHP.

So what happens when two extremely intelligent developers debate the subject? Well you get a thread of blog posts between Joel Spolsky and David Heinemeier Hansson.

Joel wrote a piece called ‘Language Wars‘ which discusses a predicament that software development shops often incur when beginning a new project - what platform? My solution is pick a standard for your company and stick to it, alleviating the need for heavy debate and weeding out the PHP nerds who won’t try a real language (just kidding!, but seriously try ASP.Net/C#) from your team.

Joel boldly states something I have been thinking about since the advent of Ruby On Rails (RoR), the very popular web framework created by David H.H. First he stated that there are 3 and a half languages to choose from when developing an Enterprise Level web application - C#, Java, PHP and a half of Python. To me, yes, his statements are correct because these are tried and true platforms with millions of developers to share knowledge with. He says that with “Serious Business Stuff” where your job is on the line there is no need to take the risk of using Ruby on Rails - it simply is not cut out for “mission critical” web application development.

I have not built an enterprise level web application in RoR, nor do I plan on it as I am perfectly happy swimming in the .NET framework. But I have built enterprise level apps in .NET and can safely say they are manageable, scalable, and fast (if you configure them right, which of course I do). I can also say, and have, that .NET can play in Web 2.0 and can be just as agile.

Back to the developer wars…

David quickly retaliated with a post entitled ‘Fear, Uncertain, and Doubt by Joel Spolsky‘ in which he happily defends his framework and calls out Joel on several levels, mostly the fact that Joel somewhat contradicts himself after stating that his company built its first product on a proprietary language created in-house, which we came to find out is called, “Wasabi”. He also pokes fun at the fact Joel finds VBScript to be a reasonable language for web development (it’s not, trust me).

There’s more to read, back and forth. You can follow along yourself here:

1. Language Wars - Joel

2. Fear, Uncertain, and Doubt by Joel Spolsky - David

3. Was Joel’s Wasabi a joke? - David

4. Wasabi - Joel

And if you want other commentary about the discussion read some of these:

1. In Defense of Joel’s Wasabi Indirection Layer - Daniel Read

2. When Did High Tech Become High School? - Mike

One thing Mike mentioned, which I think is worth re-mentioning is:

“Whenever we see such a debate coming through in blogs and forums, it is
worth investigating the real reasons why. It very rarely has anything
to do with language syntax or capabilities.”

I agree - it always winds up to be less about syntax, capabilities, agility and more about what camp you are in. I defend Microsoft because I am .NET developer so naturally I will be biased. That goes for PHP, RoR, and Java people too. You are naturally inclined to defend your platform because that is what you know.

Can’t we all just get along?