The difficulty of learning and using a programming language increases (all else being equal[1]) faster than linearly with the size of its spec, because much of

The difficulty of learning and using a programming language increases (all else being equal[1]) faster than linearly with the size of its spec, because much of the pain comes from the interaction of one feature with another. If we handwavily suppose that difficulty goes like size squared (perhaps every pair of features generates a possible interaction you have to understand) then a description 3x longer makes for a language more like 10x harder. [EDITED to add:] Which feels about right to me for the relationship between C and C++. [1] Of course there are exceptions; some "Turing tarpit" languages like Brainfuck can be completely specified with very little text, but are difficult to do anything useful with because they are stripped so very bare.