* Getting started: I agree it is painful. There's a definite learning curve here. I believe it's worth it obviously, but that's obviously subjective.

* Language choices: There are binding for quite a few other languages. There's a lot of pyqt projects out there. But I disagree that C++ is painful - it really depends on who wrote it. Well written C++ is pleasant, poorly written C++ that abuses things is awful. The javascript portion does suck tho, you are right. It will improve, but it doesn't improve quickly.

* Deploy bit: you predicted my argument here. I favor the system package manager.