> What is the appeal of small languages? For me, it isn't just the 'smallness' of the language that matters, it is the understandability of code bases written

> What is the appeal of small languages? For me, it isn't just the 'smallness' of the language that matters, it is the understandability of code bases written in the language that matters. Having fewer language constructs (especially ones that offer overlapping alternatives) means that programs that solve the same problem will tend to look the same. This makes reading a new code base easier, which makes on-boarding engineers faster. This is the main reason I like smaller languages. Languages like C++ (that seem to adopt every language feature that can be implemented) enable developers to solve similar problems in vastly different ways. In small programs that isn't an issue, but in large, old code bases it can become a very costly mistake. It can be hard to understand a large code base as it is, but when 100 different developers have touched the system and each has a pet style, you are in for it.