[sheepmullet]

Why not Java? It's more powerful, mostly faster, has superb tooling, high quality libraries for just about everything, tons of very experienced developers, etc.

[tedmiston]

In startups it's easier to hire devs for JavaScript/Ruby/Python over Java/C#/etc.

Particularly look at the orange bars in the graph "Programming Languages" on [1] which is based on data from AngelList.

1: http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-ex...

[sheepmullet]

It really depends. Outside of SV there are 10x as many skilled Java/C# developers.

In the FinTech world most of the developers with deep domain knowledge will know Java/C++.

Of course it really depends on what the OPs startup is trying to do.

[tedmiston]

Your point is definitely correct. And the post I linked uses data worldwide not just in the bay.

In fact even in my city (Cincinnti, OH) there are more Java developers than any other language, but they are mostly in corporate jobs.

So here still there are less Java developers working in startups compared to other languages.

[dlist]

Java takes longer to build with and it's harder for startups that are working on product market fit. Once we figure things out, we can rewrite in Java, but before then it's premature optimisation in my book.

[sheepmullet]

> Java takes longer to build with and it's harder for startups that are working on product market fit.

Longer or harder than using Golang? Unlikely.

Golang has some advantages over Java like a simpler deployment model, less runtime overhead, etc but overall for a fairly standard web application it makes much more sense to pick Java over Golang.

> but before then it's premature optimisation in my book.

Then so is using Golang. You have answered your own original question :). Keep using Ruby.

[dlist]

>Longer or harder than using Golang? Unlikely.

Developer productivity is much higher with Golang.