Does the choice of language affect who will use the application, especially in terms of web applications?

Question

I think this mostly applies to web applications, since you often see things like language and database vendor in regards to web applications, but not so much on desktop applications.

If a web application is created using language X, would that have any noticeable impact on who deploys the application? For example, would a company that uses .NET products ever consider using a Python application that meets their needs or would they tend to find a .NET product that they could use?

EDIT 1: Refined the question to refer to apps meant to be deployed, not just used.

Answer 1

It really depends on how much customisation and integration is required - and whether the app exposes any sort of sane API to it.

For example, you might want these types of customisation:

• Custom authentication via a module; platform may well be important
• Generate your own reports; database is likely to be important
• Act against a web service which is part of the app; protocol (SOAP, REST, custom etc) is likely to be important, but not implementation language

In addition, there's the matter of support and maintenance - a Windows ISV is likely to be better at keeping IIS running than Apache, for instance, and the reverse. Likewise it helps if you've already got servers running the required operating system...

Answer 2

I don't think most companies would even know what you were talking about, especially for web applications. I write these things for a living, and even I don't have any idea what platforms are powering my favorite websites. I don't even know what SO runs on, for that matter.

Answer 3

No, unless the choice of language has a clear impact on the functionality. Ideally it won't.

Two examples: jEdit is an amazing program, but its Java roots really hold it back. It defaults to the look-and-feel of Java GUI (swing?). It is also very slow (though Java programs need not be slow, this one is).

On the other hand, The Stack Overflow web site is based on .NET--but what does that matter? It has little impact on site functionality.

Answer 4

It would be an interesting experiment to create an application (in say ASP.NET), then slightly modify it, put it on another web server and rewrite the extensions (from .aspx to .py or .php) and see which ends up to be more popular.

Answer 5

I assume that you are talking about companies purchasing and deploying web applications within their organizations. If you are talking about just using external applications, I don't think they notice or care.

I think this is very subjective, but from my past experience, companies tend to go with the technologies they already have installed and running. They tend to do this for several reasons.

• The new application will require fewer changes to existing infrastructure (for example, getting PHP running on IIS)
• Interop with existing applications is probably going to be easier
• They probably already have expertise in-house to support whatever language/server/db, etc that they are currently running.
• Their IT people may have already formed prejudices towards the other languages/OS/db

Every time I have gone out to evaluate web applications in the past, I have limited my search to the technologies we were already using.