>>123
Listen, guy.
You seem different from the average /prog/ scum, so I'm going to try to enlighten you.
The only purpose of a practical programming language is to allow writing of useful programs. The only measure of usefulness of a programming language is the usefulness of the programs written in it. Everything else, how helpful the language really was, how much did it boost the programmers' productivity, which features of it were most useful, are secondary details encompassed and relying on that one and only measure.
The purpose of a practical programming language is most definitely not to inspire flames on anonymous textboards, mailing lists, usenet groups, etc.
The usefulness of a programming language most definitely can't be appraised by discussing its merits, in the abstract. How many times have you designed a moderately complex system that seemed absolutely perfect in every respect, only to discover that it absolutely sucks in practice, that all problems that it purported to solve are either irrelevant or not really solved at all? Myself, one too many, so I simply don't trust abstract reasoning any more.
So. The only valid kind of discussions about programming languages begins with a demonstration of a useful program, or, better, several useful programs, written in some language or in some dialect, or using some new approach, which, supposedly, made writing that program somewhat easier. Then you get people who want to write useful programs with less effort, asking you: OK, can you tell us more about your experience and explain the thinking behind it working in that exact way?
You see, the fundamental hurdle is overcome by definition this way: they aren't, like, "I think that your thing sucks, prove me wrong", they are already convinced that your thing might be useful and now only politely request clarifications.
The discussion no longer looks like: "why do I think this thing must be useful", but "this thing is useful, here's how, exactly". The latter kind of discussions can be useful, the former -- can't, ever.
My point is, go do some motherfucking programming, motherfucker:
http://programming-motherfucker.com/, instead of wasting your intelligence on pointless discussions.