I recently attended a short presentation in Cape Town where a software development firm presented their company and their core services. Among the many points that were made, there was a strong focus on presenting themselves as a Java development house. This reminded me of the importance of independently choosing the correct technology for your project and not being persuaded to use any particular language because you have initially have been introduced to a specialist firm.

I firmly believe in selecting a technology that best serves your particular project. Selecting Java for a high-end application may well be the best solution, but for a small start-up using good old PHP is often a solid decision. What is not really common knowledge is that Facebook and MySpace where initially built using PHP and there are a host of other major companies that found their footing using PHP. The list includes FlickR, Yahoo, Sourceforge and of course Wikipedia to just scratch the surface. PHP is often seen as a low level language and it is the first language that most developers learn which is probably why you find a lot of really bad PHP out there.

That said, I did notice that the specialty Java company had built their website in PHP.