Ask HN: Same dev tools/language/framework for everyone?

[y0ghur7_xxx]

Upper management of the company I work at recently stated that all new development should be done with a single combination of Dev tools, language and framework. The main reason behind this is that this way, people can be relocated from one group/project faster, because they don't need to learn a new language when they switch. Of course the chosen language and framework used by everybody does not need to be the best tool for the job, but it should just be good enough to allow every project to be done. What does HN think about this? Is it ok to use the same development tools and language for every project, without choosing what fits best?

[gaius]

It totally depends on what your company does. If all the development is a particular style (web apps, desktop apps, embedded systems, etc etc) then it makes a lot of sense provided the choice of tool is periodically revisted and also provided that it's chosen for the right reasons (i.e. not just someone senior's "favourite toy"). You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket and end up in a technological dead end with nowhere to go but a rewrite. I'd argue that that's what's happened to everyone who thought J2EE was a good way to build websites...

If however you have a lot of different things going on (e.g. your company's main business is programming embedded systems and happens to have an unrelated group doing your website and another unrelated group doing internal desktop apps for business users) then a one-size-fits-all strategy is likely to be suboptimal.

[pmorici]

I'd say it depends on what your company does. If every group does basically the same sort of thing then it might be a wise decision on the part of management. On the other hand, if one group is making websites and the other is writing Linux kernel drivers then it shows a complete lack of understanding on their part of what it is their company does.