Jeff Atwood says
When you choose a language, like it or not, you’ve chosen a platform.
I do nod my head, but still have a thought lurking in my mind. Can it be the other way too? Well, in this case the platform includes the tools, the environment, the off-the-shelf software, libraries and frameworks. Is it possible that our choice of the framework is so obvious that the choice of the programming language is implied? As it is, I think there are a lot of factors to consider for deciding on a programming language for development. And a lot of these factors are project/client/constraints based.
Just that the way we keep our options open for either selecting a programming language and then selecting a platform, or using a CMS, or a framework or libraries, is there one more option where we select the platform without worrying about the programming language? Can the selection of a CMS or the framework or the libraries, which can be collectively referred to as tools, be more dominant than the programming language?
I consider the same has been happening with Ruby. Ruby is being used for a lot of projects, because the projects are using Ruby on Rails and not the other way round. And I do not think it is wrong. Because a lot of times the tools solve the requirements through their design and features. In today’s world there are so many of these tools available that it might be worth thinking about them puristic, without affecting it with our preferences of a programming language.
I am not saying it is always like this. Sometimes I have learnt programming languages because the language itself was very powerful, sometimes the platform, sometimes off-the-shelf tools or sometimes the environment and availability. I admit that I have gone this path a lot of times, that is, choosing the programming language implicitly through the tools. What do you think? Do you think this is viable?
