> What we can’t know is whether they would have been fast enough to tweak their product to their current market without using a scripting language.
Exactly. And I am saying the following as a fan of dynamic languages but let's be realistic: this is practically their ONLY true benefit -- quicker time to market. They lose out on pretty much any other metric, with the exception of also slightly quicker iteration in the day-to-day work.
True, though I've measured my time to prototype with different languages some months ago and the advantages of PHP / Ruby / Python are oversold.
- Ruby on Rails prototype: 2.5 days.
- Golang's Gofiber: 4.5 days.
- Elixir's Phoenix: 7.
- Rust: don't ask (too long lol).
- Python's Django (made by a friend): 3.5 days.
Not to split hairs here but if you are in a situation where 5 days more for a prototype matter then I am not very sure you would have succeeded even short-term after. Putting your foot in the door can be extremely important, absolutely, but after whipping out a quick MVP you'd likely immediately stumble upon the next obstacle which is not guaranteed to be overcome.
As mentioned in my previous comment, the only argument in favor of the fastest-to-prototype languages could be that they allow slightly higher velocity day-to-day as well. But I've worked with PHP and Ruby for a long time, and I've worked with Elixir, Golang and Rust for quite a while now as well and again, that particular advantage of PHP / Ruby / Python (a) does exist, yes, but (b) is not as big as people make it out to be.
So, wait, all apps are trivial in nature and can be built in less than a week?
By your own admission here GO takes nearly twice as long (which is about what I've seen). So if you aren't building a trivial app but instead building something that takes 6 months in Ruby you'd be spending nearly 12 months in go. Sounds like a real significant amount of time if you are rushing to get to market.
Exactly. And I am saying the following as a fan of dynamic languages but let's be realistic: this is practically their ONLY true benefit -- quicker time to market. They lose out on pretty much any other metric, with the exception of also slightly quicker iteration in the day-to-day work.