[spicyusername]

> a universally accepted definition of what constitutes a good or bad programming language.

Implicitly many people, rightfully in my opinion, conflate the utility of a programming language with that language being good. If many people are able to solve real problems with a language, that language is good, the end.

Good does not equal perfect, there is no perfect in the real world of engineering.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

On the other hand, many people conflate the popularity of a programming language with it being backed by a big corporation.

There actually are a few measurable metrics of programming languages, but even when we discuss such a simple factor as execution speed that you'd expect to be universally accepted as positive, there will be people arguing that developer time is more expensive and savings made here are more important than the gains on execution speed. There is simply no way two programmers are going to agree in classifying a number of languages as good or bad.

[spicyusername]

> There is simply no way two programmers are going to agree in classifying a number of languages as good or bad.

If there is one thing humans love doing is finding small reasons to disagree hah.

[joelfolksy]

So in the world you're describing, pretty much all languages are "good," and none are "perfect." Not very interesting so far. What are the adjectives that fall in the middle, the ones that some languages deserve and others don't?