I have tinkered with dozens of languages, yet, when I can choose a programming language and money is on the line, I always ask the following questions: - Does

I have tinkered with dozens of languages, yet, when I can choose a programming language and money is on the line, I always ask the following questions: - Does it have a standard and a good track record for backwards compatibility? - Is it memory safe? (Bound checking, no pointer arithmetic, etc.) - Does the runtime have automatic memory management in the form of a tracing GC? How tweakable is it? - Does it have kernel thread support? - Does it have a centralized package repository? - If typed, will the type system assist me in defining the business domain? Does it have type inference? - If dynamic, will the development experience allow me to experiment, inspect and redefine stuff at runtime? - Can I distribute my programs as a binary or dump everything onto an image? - Can I go low level when it matters? How's the FFI experience and overhead? - Does it run on the major operating systems? Things I don't care about: Syntax, static vs dynamic typing / OOP vs FP religious wars, community size or "niceness", library count, logos, on-boarding experience aka the possibility of hiring cheap juniors. Cute mascots are nice though. We need more of that.