My motto wrt language choices: "It's the standard lib, stupid!"

My ultra hot take: there are only¹ two² programming ecosystems suitable for serious³ work:

  - .net (either run on CLR or compile as an AOT standalone binary)
  - jvm

The reason why is because they have a vast and vetted std lib. A good standard lib is a bigger boost then any other syntactic niceties.

  __
  1. I don't want other programming languages to die, so I am happy if you disagree with me. Other valid objection: some problems are better served by niche languages. Still, both .net and java support a plethora of niche languages.
  2. Shades of gr[e|a]y, some languages are more complete out of the box than others. 
  3. cf «pick boring tools»