Poll: What Programming Language Do You Use for Server Side Web Development?

198 points by bokenator ↗ HN

134 comments

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Go ?
Seriously? No you don't. There is no way you are using Go in your every day production at it's currently level of maturity. And if you are, god damnit, I hope nobody has hired you.
Elixir

Edit: I wrote this comment before Elixir was added to the poll.

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Pascal
Can you elaborate on this?
See: https://deusu.org

The backend is written in Pascal.

With the exception of the blog. That is written in Node.js. I did that as a way to learn Node.js. But as soon as I find some time I'll rewrite that in Pascal too.

I probably should also add that I'm using FreePascal - not Delphi - and that the servers are a mix of Windows and Linux.
Groovy
Despite the apparent lack of popularity, Groovy with the Grails framework is certainly better suited for web development than many (I would dare to say, most) of the programming languages listed above. Of course, it also matters what kind of web development we are talking about. Is it web services or web applications? I think the requirements are quite different between the two.
After its leadership changed in 2005, Groovy was commandeered to be primarily a scripting language for Grails. A Ruby-like meta-object protocol was added to Groovy so Grails would be Rails-like. Groovy's never really broken free of this shackle, despite its failure around static typing and Android, or use for defining builds before Gradle 3.
Why is Ruby on Rails so popular? I come from a Groovy/Grails background and one day I sat down and was going to do a Ruby on Rails project but I threw up just looking at the code.
Swift
I've been interested in using Swift for webapp too. Anyone has recommendation for a good framework?
I wrote this post the other day comparing four of the top Swift web frameworks on GitHub, maybe this will help?

https://stormpath.com/blog/swift-on-the-server-today

Be aware that all of the frameworks are targeting Swift 3 right now, so it's a bit unstable until Swift 3 is officially released. But the ecosystem is going really strong =]

I'm using Vapor on a new project and I really like it. The biggest stumbling block at the moment is that the Swift Package Manager can't resolve packages having dependencies on different versions of other packages. I'm using Vapor with Zewo's PostgreSQL ORM, and upgrading either one is an exercise in frustration.
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I tried Node/Restify, but I just can't problem-solve using those tools, so I went back to ASP.NET/Web API using C#.
Python. Django or Flask depending on the projects' needs
Languages that are cool/hip/popular here will win.

Odd that Golang was left out with it fitting that criteria... but I still stand by the assertion :)

"Go" is in the list. Perhaps you just missed it?

Edit: I see, based on other comments, that Go wasn't part of the original lineup.

I saw it just now, so by now its already added and stands 6th most used (not bad for a relatively new language) for server side web development.

I like it a lot, have been using it since 2013. I bet its going to rise in usage.

A minor point regarding its name usage. We should always call it Golang on HN & comments etc or in searches, as 'Go' is such a common word. I always try to to a ctrl-f for golang. And I am sure many other gophers do.

Node at work and for quick projects, Elixir for fun.
From the comments, seems like Other=Go ;) I'm in that camp too.