It might be true that the last 30 years brought very little new ideas in language design. But "no innovation" is something quite different than "no improvement"

It might be true that the last 30 years brought very little new ideas in language design. But "no innovation" is something quite different than "no improvement". In my opinion the languages of the present improve by a) skillfully combining the existing ideas and b) implementing the 95% other things that are not big ideas but are still essential to a language being good: consistent and broad standard lib, streamlined syntax, core concepts playing well with each other and so on. Both of the above are rather engineering than science, so the author seems right in his views. Maybe when we reach the local optimum with the current set of the fundamental ideas, we will see the need for new ones more clearly and the necessity of fundamental research will reappear.