They should be. I like Ruby, Python, and C but you can't help but be jealous of more robust platforms such as Erlang. We'd do well to stop inventing more of the

They should be. I like Ruby, Python, and C but you can't help but be jealous of more robust platforms such as Erlang. We'd do well to stop inventing more of the same crap and actually advancing the state of the art. C isn't going anywhere nor do I think it should, but it should be used only when nothing else will do. Since about version 3 C# has gotten interesting. Still, even the new interesting bits are rehashed ideas from the 70s and 80s. I guess it's interesting to see them in a mainstream language from Redmond; the features themselves are pretty mundane if you have experience with more dynamic and/or functional systems. Factor is one of the only truly unique and excellent new languages. Clojure has good ideas too but I'm not sold on the JVM.