>>1
It's kind of sad to watch Scheme, Python, and Perl self-destruct (and a pleasure to watch C++ go), but that doesn't mean we can't look forward to the future.
In what way are they self-destructing? I see these languages are still widely used by their usebases, and I don't see them going away. Scheme is widely used in the academia, and used in some commercial contexts, it has many implementations, though I expect it will have less R6Rs ones. Python is doing pretty well in the 'plumber' usergroups, and has many libraries, same goes for Perl, albeit it's used for slightly different purposes. C++ is still widely used in the commercial world, but not as much for things were a slower, but easier to use language would do (C#/Java).
Perhaps Lisp will shake off the AI winter or programmers will realize the value Haskell's Abstract Bullshite has.
There's quite a few actively developed implementations, there's many libraries and a decent userbase. Lispers don't really care for their language to become mainstream(same could be said about Haskell), but they'll gladly write code for themselves and publish nice libraries. In practice, you can do anything you can do in mainstream languages in them, and much more.
>>3
I'd like to see something completely new. Not just a new language with a bunch of new tricks, but a completely new paradigm. I don't think this will happen until a ways into the future, perhaps when the computing world undergoes some kind of radical transformation somehow.
New ideas and paradigms are being developed, but I think we already explored the main ones. Some problems are still tricky/hard, such as parallel processing, and they need to be solved as that's where the hardware is going. If quantum computing ever becomes practical, there may be some new paradigms that will be used to make it more accessible, but I don't think it'll be too soon.
>>4
Why would you want to ruin a toy language with "widespread prominence?" That only leads to the kind of streamlining that makes it more "accessible" to a broader range of users ("dumb down").
It's perfect when the userbase is mostly made of experienced users, and they maintain the language and libraries for themselves. Too small a userbase can lead to "death", or having the language become forgotten to everyone. Too big of an userbase can lead to other kinds of problems, such as legacy support and being stuck with initial hacks because people don't want to break code. Dumbing down can be dangerous, but if that happens, then it just becomes a different language.
>>5
Why do you need a new language for that? Dataflow can be incorporated into existing languages which are powerful enough without even having to change the language at all.