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Ask HN: Why is there such a divide in new languages for webdev newbies to learn?

4 points by butwhy ↗ HN
I've been in a mindset where I want to add some dynamic content to a html/css website and after asking for advice and reading around, I see so many people offering different opinions. Not only do they suggest a particular language or framework, they actively oppose other people's suggestions.

I have people telling me to learn php and then people saying php is horrible. Then people telling me to pick up django, then others saying django is not good for newbies so try flask. Then people come along and say none of these are needed because the industry is going towards doing everything in javascript.

Why is there such a drastic divide?

4 comments

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mcx
Because people can be very opinionated. You're obviously going to find very vocal people on the internet.

They may be pushing you toward a technology because that's where they found their happy path. Could also be a way for them to justify their own choices.

At the end of the day, just pick something and build it.

jordsmi
This isn't something you see in just the webdev community. Us humans like to be apart of groups or cliques. Rails vs Django. vim vs emacs. iPhone vs Android. This team vs that team. Everyone has an opinion and they think that their opinion is fact.

Do your research. Find what tool fits your needs and go with that.

lollipop26
People tend to stick to convention, and when they move to something that uses another convention, they tend to apply the convention of the former to the latter due to familiarity and because the former Just Works™. Then they'll meet friction, then blame the thing for being terrible, not knowing that they are approaching it wrong.

Then they flame on everyone using the latter.

b_t_s
One reason is that literally every programming language ever invented is a viable choice. Firmware is generally C. iPhone apps pretty much have to be Objective-C/swift. Android apps are Java, or occasionally another JVM language. WebDev? Take your pick...ruby, python, java, haskel, clojure, perl, etc. They're all relatively easy to use for web dev.