Mind you, while I think this definition of success is fair, it is fairly specific. The implication is that success means "widespread adoption." That is a proper

Mind you, while I think this definition of success is fair, it is fairly specific. The implication is that success means "widespread adoption." That is a property which correlates with properties of the language or technology, but they are not inherently related, IMO. Unfortunately people conflate success and merit. Maybe that's not so bad. What's worse is when they often go a step further and assume anything that is not successful by this metric is lousy. Hackers look at other forms of success, though, include things like clarity/expressivity or, perhaps more generally, programmer productivity/happiness. Java or VB6 are examples where merit is orthogonal to success--- disproportionately so, let's say--- so I'm not sure it's hard to admit, as you suggest. :) It may be hard to accept though! People will choose stuff without thinking much about it because it's the default and popular and therefore it can't be lousy. This might not be so bad if hackers didn't occasionally have to interact with lousy tech chosen by other people... This is part of why pg's blub programming piece[1] appeals to me so much. Living far outside the mainstream comes with its own perils, but being able to do handily stuff other people can can barely grasp can be a competitive advantage. [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html