Scott Johnson shares a new podcast that he's whipped up on his blog today with his opinions on why the engineers should get to pick what they use (specifically mentioning Rails or PHP).
In this podcast I talk about the economic implications of "Let the engineers pick" which is a quote from a podcast w/ Matt, Om and Niall about startups. This was Matt's response to a question from Om about using PHP versus Rails and while I generally agree a thousand fold with Matt, I think technology choices really matter. Letting engineers be responsible for core technology choices is often like letting the fox guard the hen house. Sure it might work but you at least want to know that's what you're doing.
The podcast last about fifteen minutes and looks more at the general topic of allowing the developers themselves to choose the tools they will be wokring with. More often than not, especially in the corporate world, technologies are forced onto someone with no real choice in the matter. Check out what Scott has to say on the subject.
http://mymuv.com/muv/details/243