[nwmcsween]

No, really no, as someone who has worked on code bases where people followed the path of least resistance (PHP in this case) things turned into a giant mess of human suffering. Pick a language that has tooling for what you want to achieve otherwise everyone reinvents it or just makes a mess.

[steve_adams_86]

I’ve found giant messes of human suffering even where the tooling chosen was relatively excellent for the problem at hand. The part not being considered is that some problems are hard to solve and developers will make a mess even with the right tools. Programming isn’t easy, but especially in uncharted territory. I think that’s why choosing tools you at least know has merits.

I spent a lot of my career consulting as a mess cleaner, more or less, and even very smart people end up making a mess sometimes. Time constraints, shifting goal posts, all of it.

I’d say the worst thing I ever see, regardless of tools, is premature optimization getting in the way of everything else.

[pdimitar]

If premature optimization getting in the way is the norm for the projects you helped then I'm afraid that the people who crated them before that might not be as smart as you imply.

A "smart" and/or a "senior" programmer knows not to optimize prematurely.

But maybe I latched only on this one sentence and missed your point. Sorry if that's the case.

[steve_adams_86]

Honestly I think even junior developers know better, but we all make bad calls sometime and maybe worst of all, requirements can change and sabotage our best efforts.