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by Sterm 1052 days ago
I always find it odd that people say this. If stack doesn't matter than why not start writing machine code again?
4 comments

Agree. ThePrimeagen had something to say about this on one of his streams, responding to someone who said "The programming language doesn't matter, only the programmer." He said something like "If that were true, let's just all go back to writing C, it's pretty good. But then you'd say 'well not exactly...'"
I think they meant the stack doesn’t matter in the sense of “which stack you choose from the options available”, rather than “whether you choose a stack versus writing machine code”.
You can hook into the abi for software that runs in Linux trivially. So why isn't machine code acceptable? When you give the honest answer you see why the majority of languages aren't acceptable either.
It's said mostly by people who let others make technical decisions for them. Others being either their bosses or the main stream.
That's not a good faith interpretation given the near infinite amount of options for conjuring up your favourite moneyprinting system of choice besides "machine code". SBCL is about the most arcane option you can pick and even that can work, which I think actually proves the point: it doesn't matter to any significant degree (anymore).
How else is one meant to read that language doesn't matter?

You can hook into anything that runs in Linux since it's abi is rock solid so the excuse of not being able to use the usual tech stacks doesn't hold water either.

You can use RoR, .NET, SBCL, Python, Erlang and 6502 assembly if you so desire. Sure “machine code” is one option, but that doesn’t engage with the argument in any meaningful way IMO.