For all practical purposes, you're never comparing just the core language, but the language+libraries for common tasks (no matter if it ships 'batteries included' or not)+the whole ecosystem and community of library developers.
If it's hard to do X in your language, but easy in other languages - then that's a weakness for your language, despite that 90% of X's will be outside of the language core.
And even 'optional extras' in your language can be weaknesses instead of features - if they are often used by library makers for less readable/maintainable code than the other options.
If it's hard to do X in your language, but easy in other languages - then that's a weakness for your language, despite that 90% of X's will be outside of the language core.
And even 'optional extras' in your language can be weaknesses instead of features - if they are often used by library makers for less readable/maintainable code than the other options.