Given that Facebook is written in PHP, and Twitter (I think) started out in Ruby, I'm not sure your assertion is well supported by your examples.
Keep in mind too, that the backend you launch with will not be the same as the backend you have at your multibillion dollar IPO. It _may_ still be written in the same language, but thats certainly not a given.)
For facebook, considering how often stuff is broken.. I Think perl or php would've done a fine job.
For youtube, I think the pull is uploading / watching videos online, and it just doesn't have anything to do with the language they picked.
For Twitter, I'm not sure how it's successful in the first place, but I do feel like there was a lot of enthusiasm in the ruby community, simply because they were based on ruby. So if they picked say php, would they have had that early cache of users? I don't think so.
No, not at all. Do you think Facebook would have gone so far into implementing all the current features since the launch if the whole site was written in Perl? Same thing with YouTube and Twitter...
There are good coders, great coders, and just a bunch of awful ones. There's a difference in being able to code something that works, and something that works brilliantly, and even better at scale. That said, readability and good commenting in coding and documentation should apply in any language.
In Python for example, there's kind of a (mostly) default way of doing it. In other languages, not so much. But that doesn't mean the company culture can't push for something like this (a standard, at least to the extent in which a language permits doing so). Developers performance is more base on how they like working in a language (better to find true language agnostic developers), culture fit, personality, etc...
If you're outsourcing, that's a totally different set of traits and number of things to look for than if you're hiring in house (which I would recommend for the core team and in general anyway; hiring in house that is).
Doesn't the more readable syntax affect the developers' performance?
What does "readable" mean? If "readable" means "I don't like sigils" or "operator overloading confuses me" or "everyone should indent their code the same way", I suspect you won't get any interesting answers.
Have the developers any experience in this language? Have they significant experience in this language? Have they any experience with the other developers? Have they significant experience in the problem domain?
> I have been a Mac user for over 15 years and those that say Mac's are only good for iOS and Mac specific stuff are sort of naive.
Well, are you going to back up your statement?
> You can run Windows or Linux as well. There are also Virtual Machine possibilities.
I'd rather build a Linux box if virtual machines are the "attracting" features of Macs.
> I think that good tools help productivity and a MacBook Pro is a GREAT tool..
Again, define "good tools." I've never owned a Mac, but I find it hard to believe its hardware is the main reason for success. I thought the software takes much of the credit.
Sure. besides iOS stuff there is graphic design, normal business/productivity stuff, web development, Mac/Windows/Linux development, almost any task you can think of.
The hardware is definitely up there in quality. I have never had a motherboard just "go south". The only issues I have ever had in 15 years is hard drives and one Superdrive...
