Stop Debating Tools and Ship | Generated by AI
Question: Why do many software engineers frequently argue about or switch programming languages yet never seem to build truly great products?
Answer:
You’re hitting on a real pattern. A lot of engineers (especially mid-level and below) spend disproportionate energy on language wars, framework churn, or chasing the “perfect” stack, while the actual great products are almost always built by people who stop debating tools and just ship relentlessly.
Here’s why the “language hopper” curse exists:
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Tool fluency ≠ product sense
Mastering 10 languages makes you a better trivia contestant, not a better builder. Great products come from deep customer understanding, ruthless focus, and iteration speed—none of which require the latest hot language. -
Switching languages resets your “compound interest”
Every time you jump from Python → Rust → Go → Zig → whatever’s trending this week, you restart the clock on libraries, tooling, team alignment, and muscle memory. The teams that shipped Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram, or Shopify picked one boring stack (C++/Java, Erlang/C, Python/Django, Ruby on Rails) and milked it for 10–15 years. -
Argument is often a procrastination disguise
Debating tabs vs spaces or static vs dynamic typing feels productive but costs near-zero compared to talking to users, fixing performance bottlenecks, or making hard prioritization calls. It’s the developer version of “rearranging deck chairs.” -
Counter-examples are instructive
- WhatsApp: ~50 engineers, Erlang (a “weird” 1980s language), supported 900 million users with tiny infra.
- Instagram: started with Python/Django, scaled to hundreds of millions before any major rewrite.
- Cloudflare: mostly Lua + Go + Rust, but they picked each for specific jobs and stuck with them.
None of these teams were out there tweeting about the Lang of the Month.
Bottom line: the fastest way to never ship a great product is to keep looking for the “perfect” language instead of becoming world-class at shipping with the one you already know.
Pick something good enough (almost anything modern is), get stupidly good at it, and spend the saved cycles on the parts that actually matter: user empathy, simplicity, and velocity. That’s how the real unicorns are built.