[sapphirecat]

> Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about the programming language syntax and semantics than whether it has the right libraries for the subject domain of the startup? Is the theory that true "hackers" care more about whether the startup uses a new and un-tested programming language than traction, likelihood of success, money, or the actual problems being solved?

As a basically useless anecdote... for random mucking around, I use whatever language sounds interesting. This has been Perl, Python, Forth, CL, Clojure, Ruby, and many others by now. (I used to consider myself a hacker, until I realized I wasn't working on any hard problems.)

But for real business, I'd choose something I know I can deliver with, which is pretty much Perl, C, or PHP for me. I've tried to extend this set by playing in Java and C# a few times, but the interest just isn't there. (Edit: I don't seem to have any problem delivering on boring problems in php, though.)