Should you standardize on a scripting language in a dev group?

Question

At work we write a small to moderate amount of scripts to aid us in normal development. We have some people that are more comfortable in python, some in perl, some in php, etc...

Sometimes I think it is best to let people work in a language they are most comfortable with. This can mean that sometimes people can do a better job on a script (as they know more tricks in one language). It can also lead to less development time per script.

Other times I think that we would benefit the most from standardizing so that there might be more shared libraries and so that we don't get into the situation of "I can't work on that script because I don't know python".

Do you think that we should standardize or let people choose for each script they write?

Answer 1

I would be inclined to let people choose, and hire people who are comfortable at learning new things. Gaining basic fluency with almost any language should be easy enough for a good developer. And for small scripts where the original author isn't far away, it's even easier.

The second part of the above is the hard part, of course. But you'll end up with a more flexible, more knowledgeable team.

Answer 2

No.

Your dev environment is hopefully a living entity that changes and is cultivated. New abilities (scripting languages) should be able to be accommodated, and older places that haven't been visited for years will someday get obviated by tools, or revisited from time to time and an evaluation will take place. Hopefully the dev scripts are a minor amount of development and automation. Chances are the team will drift towards a set of standards (ant, python, etc).

Answer 3

My opinion is that it is just like any other development environment. Do you standardize on one development language? Why? The same should be true for your scripting environment. Not only do I lean toward standardizing on a specific language I think you should standardize all the same things that you are hopefully doing in your programming environment (naming conventions, coding style, etc). Of course there are counter arguments and there will occasionally be exceptions, but hopefully they would be few and for valid reasons.

Answer 4

Like everything there are upsides and downsides.

As a developer I dislike being limited by "official company standards." More often than not these rules tend to constrain and stifle.

I think what is most important is to always have two people who can both read and write a script language on staff so one person can go on vacation or be sick without holding up the works.

For major components of your system it is probably better to standardize on a single language - as much as it pains me to say so.

Answer 5

I would advocate standardizing on a couple languages. "Thou shalt use either Python, or Perl, or Ruby. Not Rexx, nor PHP, nor NewBatch, nor aught other, for thy brethren ought to be able to read thine writing without undue despair or cutting of their skins".

Answer 6

I think the right place to ask this question is with your own team.

Your team should form a consensus as to whether or not they want a common platform or whether they want the freedom to choose the right tool for the job. There is no single best answer to this question any more than there is a single best answer for "what's the best scripting language".

Certainly there are advantages to each approach. If every team member is free to choose their own language, they might be more productive and your business will reap the benefit. On the other hand, if someone writes a critical tool in a language only she knows and then something happens to her (illness, new job, etc) you can be stuck with a single point of failure that no one knows how to fix.

Answer 7

So long as the languages in question are used for scripting, I agree with other commenters that it should be left to the devteam, and different languages should be tolerated in most cases.

If the language is used for your main codebase, you had better standardize on one.

If some developers complain about a script not written in their language, encourage them to learn it, particularly if it's one of the widespread ones like Ruby, Perl, et al.

Answer 8

Per Project, anything checked in should probably follow a rule of minimal complexity.

Your team will be gone some day, and someone else will have to come in and maintain this. Please don't make them learn 5 languages or they are going to look for your names in the source code an hunt you down.

When we've picked up hack projects like that, we've pretty much considered the creators complete fools and made fun of them. They couldn't bother themselves to learn one scripting language???

That said, if you don't check it in--who cares?