I suspect like a lot of people who came late to programming my choice was initially dictated by simple pragmatic concerns: What can I learn quickly? ...that ha

I suspect like a lot of people who came late to programming my choice was initially dictated by simple pragmatic concerns: What can I learn quickly? ...that has a fairly simple forgiving syntax ...that has a ton of online help and resources ...that I can get a prototype product out simply with ...etc - I think it's a not atypical set of concerns. For me, because of all the online help and community and ease of getting something useful working quickly I landed on ruby, at first using rails. My analysis may have been simpler than the OP but as I learned more I was able to understand more of what I needed, where my choices were good, where not. I was able to pick up other tools and languages as my interest was piqued. So no one choice is right for everyone but this approach worked for me, but more than anything the key is to drop the analysis and learn SOMETHING ...once you start it's easier to pick up more.