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There is almost nobody in startup world that will put the failure of a product/startup to choosing a dynamic language. Probably there are some exceptions where it matters but very few to count and in those cases yes use the most performant strongly typed, with string tools for static analysis and performance optimisations.

The real truth is that language preference (typed or dynamic) are more of a fashion choice in most companies where I was present than a pure technical consideration.

if you build your product by accumulating technical debt without any focus and effort toward simplicity and trying to make it do anything then the solution after many years is rewriting. But if you have the same culture and keep the same customers you will be in the sample place where you have started but now having different category of problems (eg network latency vs N+1s).

Maybe this is the "way of the startup" but lets not pretend that types can fix culture, engineering practices or product vision and good customer management.

by ken-kost3 hours ago|

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> Elixir, I still had to know my whole call chain to know what I could do with my incoming parameters. The more call sites, the more mental context.

but the call chain doesn't have to be long, i.e. it could be just 2 or 3 places; that fits inside my head. less is more

by sethammons3 hours ago|

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Sure, but it stops being that with multiple teams stepping in the same codebase as business needs expand. You revisit an area of code to find Sam in the billing department (who you don't know) interjected something or other and now there can be assumptions about the shape of data that were different than before. For us, it was data report shapes.

Elixir is amazing when the system fits in your head.