[Amadou]

But if I had to take over a project from someone, to maintain it, I'd MUCH RATHER have it be done using those technologies than MySQL and Sinatra. Yikes!

Except that isn't really an option in most cases.

The two most realistic choices are: Take over a high-quality implementation using somewhat stale tools or an average to shoddy implementation with newer tools that the developer was learning on the fly.

[dustingetz]

Coming from a functional programming perspective on code quality, I think new code written with a modern understanding of software engineering generally is better quality than old code backed by tech written with last decade's understanding.

[seclorum]

.. or, take over a project that was done by a competent developer who knew what they were doing and were able to communicate that knowledge through their codebase to anyone else who might pick up the project later on - which is the real #1 Trait of a great developer, whatever technologies they're using ..

[jaegerpicker]

The quality of an implementation is rarely tied to the tools except in extreme cases. A good Developer in general builds good solutions no matter the toolset. A good python developer is likely to become a good Objective-C developer if they invest the time to learn and because they understand the need for clean modular code the iOS code is likely to turn out pretty well.

[corresation]

Take over a high-quality implementation using somewhat stale tools or an average to shoddy implementation with newer tools that the developer was learning on the fly

My experience has been that developers who are most interested in innovations in this industry are dramatically more likely to build better solutions -- the passion and interest cuts both ways. Versus the career developer who does the absolute minimum necessary.

But of course with any given situation and set of developers your mileage will vary (I've known on-the-edge developers who build ridiculously nice code, and hanging-two-generation-back coders who make disgusting code. And vice versa). This particular scenario bothered me because the nodejs / cassandra canards were propped up under the illusion that the only advantage they offer was nefarious "Web Scale". Only in reality for many projects they make it ridiculously efficient to build solutions. The same goes for Go right now -- there are practitioners who can build in moments what would have taken months on a, for instance, ASP.NET team.

[oinksoft]

My experience is that for every developer who adopts a new technology for its true merits, there are at least two others who use it only because it is at the top of Hacker News/Ruby Weekly/other trendy publication, and those developers take advantage of very few of the technology's benefits.