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Is being productive immediately better than a constant loss of productivity due to manual boilerplate writing?

It seems to me to be the wrong trade

Depends on a number of factors. I think GitHub copilot is reducing that trade off a bit more. If the average dev stays somewhere for 2.5 years (our average is quite a bit higher because I tend to think we’re good place to work) - how long are you willing to invest in them learning the new tech (and on top of the, business logic/etc)? The lower the investment number the less you’re willing to dive into rust sans specific technical reasons (which go and elixir would easily meet).

Separately, I don’t buy the notion that a language that has a bit more boilerplate is less productive than one with virtually none.

This is all from a managers perspective, which I suspect is the main reason we disagree.

From a coders perspective, using sub-optimal tools and churning out boilerplate day in and day out makes the difference between keeping a job and looking elsewhere.

Which turns it into a managers problem, because if your developers are not happy, you won't be either in the long run.

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