Let me reverse the question; what metric would make sense to a new programmer? Experience dictates that the only measure which new people really care about is f

Let me reverse the question; what metric would make sense to a new programmer? Experience dictates that the only measure which new people really care about is familiarity (see the debate between s-expressions vs. infix operators) and it's also the only one they feel strongest about. Is it small wonder that OO languages are more popular when the vast curriculum of the current generation of programmers were raised on python or Java?