Because a community or user base does not exist is not a reason to avoid development. That's only going to lead you to failure every time, in every thing that you do.

This just isn't true. I use Perl for web development because there's a great Perl web-developing community. I've had enormous success doing so, and I credit the community for a lot of that. Where would I be without Apache/mod_perl, CGI::Application and DBI?

As an example, I've been tempted to do some web work in Scheme and Smalltalk, just because the languages are so damn cool. The problem is, I'd be practically alone. And that's just not a good idea. That's the wisdom I was trying to pass on to you: don't look for technology, look for community. Community is the important thing.

Can you start your own community? Sure! But do that first, don't just go off to your cube and start hacking. And realize that it's a much harder job than just writing the next great Perl graphics library.

-sam