There's been a lot of info recently about the hosting plans of YC startups but less discussion about development technology trends. I would be curious to know what the dominant technology is for developing apps among YC startups.
EDIT: I should mention that CherryPy is at its heart. We love CherryPy. And our chat backend uses a secret sauce Python async framework that might or might not be open sourced very soon...
We (the developers) are actually beginning to feel like it's one of the biggest Django sites on the interweb right now. Definitely not trying to toot my own horn here, but we're
gaining users like mad and traffic is insane.
Disclaimer: I figure the OP's question is more directed at HN members rather than YC startups, but for the record we're not a YC startup
Sorry to call you out, but your directly quantified Quantcast results show you at less than 1k uniques per day.
There are a LOT of Django sites out there with considerably more traffic and it misrepresents the size of the Django community to suggest that, "one of the biggest Django sites" is only serving a few hundred hits a day.
just a heads up: on the about page this sentence ->
Our mission from the onset has been to seamlessly connecting teachers, students, and parents through the Internet.
Short: we use a Django frontend to an Erlang backend.
Long answer: we used Django because that's what I knew best, but we're going to switch to Pylons because it's more flexible (being a so-called "glue framework") and has less dependency on a database (tried writing a custom authentication backend in Django without a database? Good luck).
So Django is great if you have a database; less so if you don't (I guess that's the whole "full stack" thing).
Here we are using PHP/CakePHP on almost all our projects.
Why? I have being using PHP for almost 10 years, so it was a lot easier to switch to a PHP framework when I switched to an open source framework about 3 years ago. PHP is also easier to get on a shared hosting (maybe not anymore, but at the time I made my switch, it was a major concern).
Like : API, doc, large community.
Dislike : php syntax (->), no active record, PHP4 support (no real visibility control), deployment on windows/ISS is no easy task.
But future looks good as they plan to drop PHP4 quite soon with 1.3.
It is funny, when every I speak php to another coder I call -> "dot". It isn't a dot, it is an arrow, but something got wired that way in my brain. "Object" "dot" "attribute"
Rails at one; we're looking into liftweb/scala at the other.
We see the robustness of the jvm as a lot more useful at the latter- and scala seems like a good fit (better than java itself, or ruby for that matter) for the kind of datamining we're going to do. Granted, C would likely be much faster, but the ability to include third party java packages and the amount of boilerplate needed for C turned us off to that. Add in a good web framework like Lift, and we don't see the need to fracture our server-side apps into many different languages.
[+] [-] mrshoe|16 years ago|reply
EDIT: I should mention that CherryPy is at its heart. We love CherryPy. And our chat backend uses a secret sauce Python async framework that might or might not be open sourced very soon...
[+] [-] whalesalad|16 years ago|reply
We (the developers) are actually beginning to feel like it's one of the biggest Django sites on the interweb right now. Definitely not trying to toot my own horn here, but we're gaining users like mad and traffic is insane.
Disclaimer: I figure the OP's question is more directed at HN members rather than YC startups, but for the record we're not a YC startup
[+] [-] aaroneous|16 years ago|reply
There are a LOT of Django sites out there with considerably more traffic and it misrepresents the size of the Django community to suggest that, "one of the biggest Django sites" is only serving a few hundred hits a day.
[+] [-] apsurd|16 years ago|reply
should be "to seamlessly connect..." ?
[+] [-] leif|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siong1987|16 years ago|reply
Look at the first answer. It seems like there are bigger django websites out there.
[+] [-] gaia-forming|16 years ago|reply
Very nice, I congratulate you. You have found a niche, and your execution is top notch.
[+] [-] jacquesm|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elai|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christopherdone|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leif|16 years ago|reply
I'm assuming you meant "webapps".
[+] [-] intranation|16 years ago|reply
Long answer: we used Django because that's what I knew best, but we're going to switch to Pylons because it's more flexible (being a so-called "glue framework") and has less dependency on a database (tried writing a custom authentication backend in Django without a database? Good luck).
So Django is great if you have a database; less so if you don't (I guess that's the whole "full stack" thing).
[+] [-] jerryji|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j15e|16 years ago|reply
Why? I have being using PHP for almost 10 years, so it was a lot easier to switch to a PHP framework when I switched to an open source framework about 3 years ago. PHP is also easier to get on a shared hosting (maybe not anymore, but at the time I made my switch, it was a major concern).
Like : API, doc, large community.
Dislike : php syntax (->), no active record, PHP4 support (no real visibility control), deployment on windows/ISS is no easy task.
But future looks good as they plan to drop PHP4 quite soon with 1.3.
Some website we created using cake: http://www.themetropolitain.ca http://www.gogarneau.com
I hate "->".
[+] [-] RobKohr|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adw|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trefn|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fuelfive|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simanyay|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] warfangle|16 years ago|reply
We see the robustness of the jvm as a lot more useful at the latter- and scala seems like a good fit (better than java itself, or ruby for that matter) for the kind of datamining we're going to do. Granted, C would likely be much faster, but the ability to include third party java packages and the amount of boilerplate needed for C turned us off to that. Add in a good web framework like Lift, and we don't see the need to fracture our server-side apps into many different languages.
[+] [-] jobenjo|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xixi|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xixi|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redact207|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] immad|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poltergeist|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewtj|16 years ago|reply
DNS server is implemented in Twisted (but is not derived from twisted.names) and web site is Django+nginx. Database is Postgres.
[+] [-] Luyt|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkokelley|16 years ago|reply