> Awesome progress that brought us Java, SOAP, C++, Javascript-on-the-server, and a slew of other tech some of us want to stay far, far away from.
When people talk about progress from PL design, they aren't talking about any of those things. If you notice, all of those things were made in industry, not in PL research/academia. Not to mention that those languages are also ones that ignored the PL design progress! (although C++ finally seems to be adding some ideas from PL research in C++17)
They're talking about things like parametric polymorphism, dependent types, modules, macros etc. (I've mostly been reading about work in the types/ML family languages, but I'm sure there's progress been made outside that as well)
When people talk about progress from PL design, they aren't talking about any of those things. If you notice, all of those things were made in industry, not in PL research/academia. Not to mention that those languages are also ones that ignored the PL design progress! (although C++ finally seems to be adding some ideas from PL research in C++17)
They're talking about things like parametric polymorphism, dependent types, modules, macros etc. (I've mostly been reading about work in the types/ML family languages, but I'm sure there's progress been made outside that as well)