Tech Pick
I came across this interesting question about choosing a development stack.
The Question:
When building a new web app, project, website, how do you choose your development stack? Nowadays there are hundreds of ways one could go about building the same project.
I am a entry level software developer wanting to start a side web project, but I feel stuck in analysis paralysis. I don’t mind trying to learn new languages either. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated! Thanks, guys!
I completely identify with the analysis paralysis issue. There’s just so much interesting technology out there (whether a tech stack or programming language).
There’s an answer (further down the page) that mentions a neat article – The Boring Stack – The Best Way To Build Interesting Things. It’s a worthwhile article that gets to the heart of the question.
The top answer given asks the questioner to distinguish between the desire to learn something new versus the desire to start a business that needs a development stack. This is a very thoughtful criteria (emphasis mine):
If your goal is to learn a new language [or a new development stack], that’s fine – pick something that looks interesting, or that furthers your career development. As a web developer: rails, python + django or node are all decent choices with wide adoption, and you should probably know at least one of them.
If your goal is to start a business, pick a tech stack that you know and that lets you move fast with safety. Learning new tech is not the goal here.
Media Pick
I’ve mentioned the Functional Geekery podcast previously. I like how it completely focuses on functional programming. I found episode 106 to be good in following the interviewee’s (Reid Evans) journey into functional programming. The show notes also had some interesting functional JavaScript resources including Reid’s channel on YouTube.
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