Work in progress!

Deciding on a fit for purpose a programming language

Opinionated Programming Language Decision Tree.

Prerequisites

Micros service architecture (service mesh) that allows polyglot languages. PWA or SPA and backend for front-end.

• Security architecture
• API Integration architecture
• Application architecture

Shortlist

List of considered/evaluated languages

• C# / .NET (Core)
• Clojure
• Elixir
• Erlang
• Go
• Groovy
• JavaScript
• Kotlin
• C++
• Dart
• Java
• Node.js
• Objective-C
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby
• Rust
• Scala
• Swift
• TypeScript

Decision tree

Backend

Go

Default choice for a general purpose solution that is self written (no framework etc). Write stable and efficient code that performs a limited task.

Good fit

• Strict harware requirements
• High security requirements
• Small

Bad fit

• Large implementations (monolithical)
• Dependency mmanagement and libraries

Java/Kotlin/Scala

General purpose solution that often related to integration or security.

Usage: Messaging, web application, highly concurrent application

Good fit:

• For the purpose of libraries and ecosystem.
• A good fit for medium to large size implementations that doesn't have strict resource constraints.
• Security, Maths, BI

Bad fit:

• Strict hardware requirements
• IO operations
• Memory requirements (Managing images etc)
• Small sytem and want to avoid boilerplate

Javascript/Node.js

Highly useful when scalable and faster application is required. More suited for an application like real-time collaborative.

Good fit

• Prototyping
• For the purpose of libraries and ecosystem
• A good fit for small single threaded tasks
• Transformation support
• Want to have same language for backend and frontend
• Want to optimize for IO

Bad fit

• Concurrency and multi threading
• Large implementations (monolithical)
• Want to optimize for CPU

C# (.net core)

Good fit

• When there is a fit in echosystem (like Service fabric etc.)
• Small to large implementations
• Want to use MVC for frontend.

Bad fit - Echosystem and libraries (getting better). - Small sytem and want to avoid boilerplate

Python

Good fit

• Maths, BI and AI. Optimise for IO
• Scripting
• Prototyping
• For the purpose of libraries and ecosystem Bad fit

Frontend/client

• Browser
  • Javascript
  • TypeScript
• Mobile (when native is needed) Native is good when you want to differentiate and want to have the latest that the plattform can )
  • Swift
  • Kotlin