[decasia]

The thing is, every language has serious issues, whether usability issues, documentation issues, performance issues, community issues, standard library issues, dependency issues, whatever. And for every issue, there are some people who just don't feel affected by it (or disagree that it is even an issue), and others who feel it deeply, to the point of outrage. So even if you ever get a consensus on what the issues are, there's even less of a consensus on how much they matter and what to do with them. Some people can live with certain problems and others are really distracted or bothered by them. It depends hugely on the context and environmental constraints too (can your org switch languages? when? on what terms? etc).

I think there's something deeply path dependent about how software people go through languages and fall in and out of love with them. Python was the first language I ever used professionally. It was amazing at the time compared to Java. But I haven't touched it in years now and don't especially want to. It's not that I "broke up" with it -- I just went elsewhere and it wasn't used there. You usually have to speak the local language wherever you go...

At a certain point, I think a lot of us give up on the idea of "loving" or "not loving" the language we use. They are all just tools. Some professional software people still have love affairs with their tools. That's cool I guess, but I have to say, I've written useful software in horrible languages (PHP) and I feel good about that too, and about not caring about the lovability factor (so to speak) of my professional toolkit.