I hope the author spends some time learning about programming languages and programming language research. The core point is simply false, and the evidence to

I hope the author spends some time learning about programming languages and programming language research. The core point is simply false, and the evidence to support it ranges from flimsy to nonsense. "The plain truth about programming languages is that while there have been many small gains in the last 20 years, there have been no major advances" There have been many major advances. The fact that they were not included in java does not mean they do not exist. >There have been no new paradigms Arguably there have only ever been two paradigms: imperative and functional (object oriented and procedural simply being minor variations of the imperative paradigm). It is not reasonable to expect entirely new paradigms to be discovered on anything other than an incredibly rare basis. >I'm not even aware of major new language features The first thing this should do is trigger your "I should research new language features" instinct, not your "I should assume there are none" instinct. >beyond some aspects of static type systems So, he does know some, but chooses to ignore them because why exactly? >The core of virtually every extant programming language is largely similar. No. And it is entirely possible for new things to replace old things, programming languages are not required to take the C++ approach of accumulating every possible feature that has ever existed. >Some of the things Haskell and Scala's type systems can express are astonishing; but I have also seen each type system baffle world-renowned experts That is an awfully bold statement to just pull out of nowhere with nothing to back it up. Who are these experts, and what baffled them exactly? Haskell has been a hotbed of programming language research in the last decade, with a large number of advances being made and being put into actual use, then more advancements being built on top of those. Dismissing the entire concept of type systems based on an unnamed "expert" who was somehow "baffled" by some unmentioned aspect of the language is insane. >Verification techniques and tools have made major advances Yeah, like those crazy type system things you just dismissed as being unconvincing, oversold, and baffling to experts. Go learn agda and then tell me nothing new has happened in 20 years.