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It would be helpful to see each platform used to solve a shared problem that's both reflective of the type of project we'd use it for and has sufficient complexity to see characteristics such as resilience, scalability, performance, and any other characteristics we can list here. I'm also interested in seeing GraphQL within each platform.

We need to have some process down about how this decision will be made. This is me writing down the methodology I think we should follow in making this decision, if there is any points that you feel need changed, let me know.

There are two types of considerations that come into choosing a language, subjective and objective. Often times people consider the subjective to be less imporantant than the objective. That is something I think we should avoid. Subjective considerations (taste) play a large part in software development. That being said, subjective and objective considerations do differ.

Subjective tastes are person relative. When we are considering the subjective, we should look for broad agreement, rather than individual preference. For example, our team as a whole has a strong preference towards functional programming, hence Java is not one of the languages we are considering. Subjective considerations work best when there is consensus.

Objective considerations apply across people. Given adequate evidence, objective facts should be agreed on by all members of the team. Many objective statements are common knowledge. For instance, the fact that Elixir runs on the Erlang VM does not require a citation unless this is knowledge a team member does not share. Some objective facts however, require careful definition and sufficient evidence. For instance, X is more scalable than Y requires some way in which we can measure scalability and some sufficent test to prove such a statement.

The objective and subjective connect as well. It is our subjective tastes that let us weigh which objective facts we consider important. For example, Java supports object orientation is something no one on our team would dispute, but this is subjectively not seen as a positive feature. Even positive objective facts about a language will be weighed differently.

TL;DR - Give objective and subjective reasons.

The final choice

Regardless of how this process plays out, I think it makes sense to have a method for how we will choose at the end. My personal opinion is that the language we use for this project should be chosen by vote. This way everyone has an equal voice in the decision.

@jimmyhmiller can you expand on your comment that Elixir "encourages stateful services"? I've not found that to be the case but want to understand that perspective.