Comment by domenicd

I'm not sure this is a winnable game for programming languages.

- Keep a small stdlib, like JavaScript (especially earlier JavaScript): everyone complains about missing features, warring communities form around jQuery promises vs. Promises/A+ vs. callbacks, supply chain attacks, left-pad/is-even dependencies, etc.

- Grow a big stdlib while keeping backward compatibility, like C++: lots of cruft left around that must never be used, sitting next to newer stuff with similar names. People complain about the bloat.

- Grow a big stdlib and then break backward compatibility, like Python 2 -> 3: everyone is sad, the ecosystem churns for years.

I admit there are probably better and worse versions of each strategy, e.g., it seems to me like JavaScript's slow-but-steady accretion of primitives over time has gone OK, and it seems like apart from Python 2 -> 3 some of the PEPs I see for deprecations and replacements are reasonable. But no language has ever hit on a strategy that everyone loves, as far as I can tell.