Comparing languages requires comparing their ecosystem in 99% of cases, since most people don't have the luxury of having enough time to reimplement whatever they need from scratch.
It's one thing to compare languages in the abstract, for e.g., to compare and contrast iteration or exceptions or whatever. It's a different thing to compare languages for doing something specific -- in this case, scientific computing. If someone want to get something done in a realistic ( or affordable) time frame, then things like like libraries, community, and documentation become especially important.