[wvenable]

Probably should be "management" can't be rational about programming languages because that's what it's about. The article isn't talking about a group of engineers coming together to decide on a platform, instead it's about a choice being thrust upon from from up high. That management is also an engineer but that's not really the key point.

[1718627440]

Why would management care about tools?

[necovek]

In the first example, they didn't and recruited a CTO who made a tool choice that arguably killed the business (maybe it still ends the same with PHP, minus the experience of building a nicely architected system in Perl: what-ifs all around).

Management does need to care to ensure they hire people who will make the right choices (which is a careful balancing act of investment vs returns) if they don't trust themselves to do it.

[wvenable]

CTO is management.

[hunterpayne]

Exactly, when they do its a sign of bad management. The only case I can think of when this isn't true would be the difficulty in finding people willing to use/work in that language. But in all but the most obscure languages, this is probably given too much weight by management.