...and all the expressive syntax in the world just leaves the pointy-eared, spike-tailed, non-spherical cows, poking out all over the place. I pretty much agre

...and all the expressive syntax in the world just leaves the pointy-eared, spike-tailed, non-spherical cows, poking out all over the place. I pretty much agree with everything you said, and think it's a good analogy, but eventually come back to the point of the article we're responding to, which is that a lot of the complicated syntax, and features that languages introduce, just ends up non-essential complexity around the inherent complexity of the real world, that you're highlighting.