> where we had to sit him down and tell him he needs to use the right tool for the job or get lost.
One can look at it the other way. If your language needs a million lines of IDE code to function and for programmers to be productive with it, maybe it is time to sit down and tell that language to "get lost".
If you are more productive with a million lines of IDE code backing you up + that language than you would be in Emacs with C++, why would you tell that language to get lost?
That's pure nonsense. There is nothing that prevents languages like Lisp or Smalltalk from being used with a console editor and the compile-pray-debug cycle, but that's no reason to shoot yourself in the foot. This is true of any language, but for some reason there's a large mass of developers of those other languages that see shitty tools and incomplete programs (remember kids, high LOC count means bloat!) as some kind of virtue.
One can look at it the other way. If your language needs a million lines of IDE code to function and for programmers to be productive with it, maybe it is time to sit down and tell that language to "get lost".