I'd argue that a “handful” is a bad measure as it is far too subjective. Even in the physical world rather than the murky depths of analogy. I've seen handful u

I'd argue that a “handful” is a bad measure as it is far too subjective. Even in the physical world rather than the murky depths of analogy. I've seen handful used to mean a wide range of numbers, some using it as an alternative to “a few”, some to mean around the order of 10, and so on. Half a dozen is much more likely to be interpreted by each reader as more-or-less the same scale. Heck, it might be entirely accurate or even an understatement. I use four languages actively (c#, JS, SQL, Bash), five if you count PowerShell (though I only touch that at most once or twice a month ATM, so I'm not counting that as active). I find it very easy to believe many out there actively create new stuff in 6 or more, especially if they work on multiple sets of projects (day job current, day job legacy, personal experiments, open source projects, ...).