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When Should We Ditch Our Platform?

Posted by kdawson on from the future-shock dept.

odoketa writes "My organization recently had to replace our Web developer. It took us an extremely long time to find someone with the necessary skill set. I don't know if this is because of the platform we are running (which I will leave nameless), or simply because the fates conspiring against us. It's easy to assume that languages or platforms are popular based on buzz, but the rubber hits the road when you have to hire someone to maintain that code. How are folks out there determining when you've backed the wrong horse, and getting back on track?"

3 of 622 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Which platform? by orclevegam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He wants to know, generically, how you decide that what you're using is the wrong choice. All choices are wrong, some are just more wrong than others. Generally you attempt to find the least wrong choice at that time, and then periodically re-evaluate the cost of switching to a newer less wrong choice.
    --
    Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
  2. Re:Solution by HomerJ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've actually WRITTEN web backends in Fortran....how else are you going to make a pretty website with data that only sits on a 20 year old VAX?

    I also did one site in Fortran just to see how it would work. Fortran write statements using formats, is a lot better than using C, I'll tell you that much.

  3. Re:Which platform? by Dragonslicer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sorry I have work on both Perl and PHP. I see little difference in them as far as read ability. Heck if nothing else PHP can be worse. The big difference is that PHP gets more readable as the skill level of the person who wrote it increases, while Perl gets less readable as the skill level of the person who wrote it increases.