"corporate standards" are at least partially good. They should be reasonable though and adaptive to the times. Having a set of acceptable programming languages, frameworks, etc. ensures that the company understands the risks of those choices, can apply reasonable upgrade/maintenance/security patches as needed, can attract and retain personnel that understand the language, etc. Allowing arbitrary choice leads to complete anarchy. The opposite is also at least as bad. Having one rigid language/framework leads to obsolescence and inflexibility. A good programmer will be able to make a strong case as to why this new language/platform is vastly superior to the current one because changing to the new one and supporting the old one are not zero-cost propositions.