There are plenty of non-academic languages with tooling issues as well. I think the larger issue is simply if the language has significant usage in a large corp

There are plenty of non-academic languages with tooling issues as well. I think the larger issue is simply if the language has significant usage in a large corporation who can sponsor tooling development, or not. Most tooling issues are pretty minor for small apps, it’s once one employs scores of developers that the lack of tooling begins to hurt (and by hurt, I mean cost money).