I would add: A debugger that works, and an IDE that helps you get the job done (versus endless cycles of "print" debugging). I'd rather use a moderately crappy

I would add: A debugger that works, and an IDE that helps you get the job done (versus endless cycles of "print" debugging). I'd rather use a moderately crappy language in a decent development environment than a wonderful language that was lacking tools support. It's not all about the language.