The good kind of hard is a steep learning curve which is necessary due to the richness, expressiveness, and sometimes uniqueness of a language. Getting past the

The good kind of hard is a steep learning curve which is necessary due to the richness, expressiveness, and sometimes uniqueness of a language. Getting past the difficult learning curve is rewarded by being able to implement almost any solution naturally without having to shoehorn it too much to fit the idiosyncrasies of the language. The bad kind of hard is like trying to learn to program in Malbolge or brainfuck. Yes it's going to be hard and requires a lot of effort to master. But getting past the learning curve yields little to no reward. So difficulty of mastery is no indication of the quality of the language and, by itself, shouldn't be used as an argument in favor of a given programming language. I think your point is well made by letting the last two paragraphs stand on their own.