[RootDynasty]

The language part of the Wolfram Language is still really kludgy to use and quite slow. Even doing simple things like writing a function or an if statement is painful. What it does have going for it is the biggest, baddest standard library available.

imo, the language would be much more compelling if the syntax was redesigned from the ground up and made easier to debug (the error messages in Mathematica are next to useless)

[akater]

I'm sorry but your comment will be grossly misleading to people unfamiliar with the language. There's absolutely nothing painful about If and Function. However, I must note that in a rule-based language both are used far more sparingly than they would be in an imperative, or even functional language. I found myself moving from If to Replace, for example.