PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?

I hate environmentalists. Don't get me wrong, I love the environment, I even call myself a geolibertarian at Mises conferences, but the problem I have with environmentalists is that they think "the world doesn't boil down to dollars and cents" (This was actually said to me).<p>Let's be very, very generous here and assume that it would take twice as long to code something in C that it would in Python. Let's assume that the code isn't a static library, but something like a web app or equivalent. Doubling the number of developers to get the 10x speed up / 90% reduction in server use <i>is not worth it from an environmental perspective</i>. Those developers use resources to live. They burn fuel to heat their dinner. They drive their car to work.<p>These types of arguments are trying to make an emotional plea to a perceived market failure. The solution is to fix the market, not waste time implementing stuff in C. Tax pollution at the rate at which it would take to clean it up and the market will automatically allocate resources efficiently.

"PHP/Python/Ruby - Immoral?"<p>Ooh, ooh, Betteridge's Law of Headlines - <a href="http://enwp.org/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines" rel="nofollow">http://enwp.org/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines</a> - has the answer: no.

For scientific computing and data crunching, trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE HARDWARE, I would agree you are wasting resources using a interpreted language, and it is inefficient.<p>But when your goal is first to market, and trying to get the MOST OUT OF THE PROGRAMMERS - it is a waste of human resources, and programmer enjoyment using a compiled language with an unfriendly syntax.<p>Of course, you could find experienced programmers who are super fast productive, and super happy to work in the compiled languages - but don't underestimate that most people enjoy interpreted's ease of getting started, and syntax simplicity - and usually they cost less to hire as there is a larger pool of people.

I have to disagree here. Although I know that the speaker is just trying to have fun with the idea the metaphor is flawed. whereas a Mercedes engine gets more and more powerful and not any more efficient computer processors are getting more efficient by the day. also the "10 to 100 times slower" comment seems like an exaggeration to me. In the end the language you use should be decided by what will give your customers the best software possible and nothing else. Because its not immoral to waste the computers time but it is immoral to waste the users time.

...and then they embed Flash in the page. I wonder how much energy gets wasted by my CPU fan being driven to 100% on Flash sites :)

Opposing nuclear power is immoral. Writing code is ruby is good sense.<p>CO2 is only a problem if we let it be.

"All things techi and nerdy!" - I cannot wait to have the power to downvote.