Boring tools win: why experienced programmers distrust frameworks and rewrites
October 5, 2026 · 12 min read
Pieter Levels ships profitable products with PHP and jQuery, Guido van Rossum advises picking technologies without overthinking it, ThePrimeagen talks about choosing tools, and the FFmpeg maintainers are wary of rewrites. Their shared view pushes back on the habit of chasing new stacks instead of shipping.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- Pick tools you know, learn them deeply, and focus on the product.
- The target is switching as a substitute for shipping, not novelty itself.
- Levels: an old, stable stack carries profitable solo businesses.
- Levels: launch in about two weeks to test whether people will pay.
- Levels suspects some frameworks are promoted by money; it is his suspicion.
- Van Rossum: nobody can predict which technology lasts, so do not overthink it.
- Van Rossum: accept an imperfect choice and keep a plan B.
- Van Rossum: replaced technologies leave ideas that survive.
- ThePrimeagen: know your editor deeply; tweak your setup about once a year.
- ThePrimeagen: learn why code exists before deleting it.
- ThePrimeagen: language benchmarks mostly reflect how the code was written.
- Kempf: new languages for new projects; do not rewrite working software.
- Kunhya: a replacement must be as good or better and pass the same tests.
- Evidence here is experience; no controlled comparison is cited.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.