On LtU an interesting thread. Michael Vanier: LFM's and LFSP's.

• LFM (Language designed For the Masses)
• LFSP (Language designed For Smart People)

The complete article being discussed is on Paul Graham's site. This is the other end of the scale from the Programming for the masses topic. Is there a difference between languages designed for the mixed ability corporate team and the uber-programmers? I think the answer to this is yes. Would it be possible to design a language usable by both groups? More difficult to say.

There is a basic psychological issue that I think is related to the LFM and LFSP language design issue. You've probably read of Dr. David A. Dunning's research that suggests that incompetent people have the most difficulty in recognizing their incompetence. This is an observation anyone who has worked in the mixed ability corporate development team can understand. A single language with different levels might suffer because the incompetent would more rapidly "progress" to the expert level than the more competent, who were more cognisant of their limits. Perhaps this is part of the problem Michael mentions with C++ and is the reason the dangerous features get used by people who don't really understand them. I really don't know how to handle this rather basic people problem.

Here's a copy of the New York Times article about the research. I looked through quite a few google results and this is a good reference, not just something someone made up.