[spobo]

Use a higher level programming language and use a standard interface to communicate with the frontend. If you build a REST API for the backend it doesn't even matter what language it is written in. You can always swap parts out for faster performing versions later on. You can even split up parts in different programming languages.

If you want to decrease development cost go with an ecosystem that most of your developers have mastered. Python, PHP, Ruby, Java, .NET, whatever. Pretty much all these languages have great frameworks these days to allow for faster development.

I personally go with Ruby because they were pretty much first on the scene with their gem ecosystem (which is massive), they have a lot of cool and smart developers in the community and it's overal a great experience. Easy to pick up too with all the resources that are out there.

But whatever you do don't force a language along with it's ecosystem that your developers don't like. Listen to the dev team and know that every language has great potential. I'd come back and ask what frameworks should I use to build a high performance site as quickly & efficiently as possible given I work with language X. Maybe the dev team is unaware of recent awesome frameworks in the language they know & love.

[WALoeIII]

I'm a Ruby fan, but "pretty much first on the scene with their gem ecosystem" is patently false. CPAN is much bigger, and much older.

http://www.cpan.org/