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2 points by Designer ↗ HN
Hi. I am a succesful designer and business man without a technical background. I have a consumer website that I am interested in hiring someone to develop for me. I believe the idea is very strong and want to build it " right" once as I think it has a good chance of taking off. What language should I get it programmed in? I am looking for something scaleable that does not have to be rebuilt if we encounter large traffic and will be the right basis in which to approach VC's. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Steve

6 comments

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macco
In my oppinion every programming language scales. It is more important which language you catch up fastest.

I would recommend PHP or Python. PHP is not the nicest language but it will you give you results in very short time. Python is my personal favorite, it is, in my oppinion, the best programming language for beginners. A third choice could be Javascript, you need it on the client anywhay, but I am not so sure if it is suited for a beginner to use on the server.

Designer
Someone I am speaking with is telling me he would program in Microsoft. Any thought about that Vs. Php?
huhtenberg
You are approaching this from the wrong end.

Focus on getting the right person who has real life experience writing scalable backends in the area of your interest. It does not matter to the slightest if he happens to do that with MS technologies or PHP.

jwdunne
Well, Microsoft has a range of products which you can use and, from my memory, at least 2 languages (VB and C#) which can be used for web development (can F# be used in web development? I'm sure it should be possible).

My problem with these languages is that it pretty much ties you down with Windows. Of course, there is Mono but I'm not sure if that's as stable as what MS have to offer.

That being said: that's my opinion. I think you should stop worrying about the technologies your using and just write code in it. It's only way to learn. You'll soon discover what works best for you.

thaumaturgy
(I have been programming for long enough, I am completely language-agnostic.)

PHP will give you the most flexibility in terms of platforms and availability of developers. PHP will allow you to host your site with a shared hosting service, a VPS, whatever you like, with a minimal amount of hassle, because it's supported everywhere.

ASP is a popular choice, too, but that generally ties you to the Microsoft platform, which can be much more expensive (and, IMO, less reliable).

Java is also a popular choice; I can't think of any serious downsides other than it's not as widely-used as PHP.

Many developers are migrating to Python and Ruby because they prefer those languages, or the frameworks associated with them. PHP is an ad-hoc design and that bothers a lot of developers.

But, PHP still pretty much rules the backend for dynamic sites, as far as I know.

imjonathanlee
I believe that every programming language will reach a cap in terms of scalability sooner or later. It's really unpredictable as how big the launch will get (how many users you will have) no matter the idea or design. Therefore, I would really suggest using PHP because it's a well-known language and easy to build off of. I've hired and fired developers and the main problem is that when one developer doesn't work out- you need a replacement ASAP. That's one of pros I see with PHP, because good developers in PHP are so readily found. It's also very scalable to a certain extent, provided that you don't generate millions in traffic the first few days- allowing you to slowly see how your traffic is structured and the next path you should take then.