the ever infusion of new blood is what made Javascript & Python to be in top 3 languages today. Even though things like Ruby were easier for some. Ruby not being easily installed on windows back then stopped new blood as well.
for language designers / framework designers -- make your stuff easy for beginners then it easily grows.
Also the lack of something akin to Python's IDLE in the standard install, to decrease set-up attrition for beginners. E.g. see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16042945/rubys-irb-with-...