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All the C derivatives are getting closer to one-another. How different are Typescript, C-sharp, and Java? When JavaScript adds gradual typing, interface, etc. won't all these languages be nearly the same? The runtimes will differ but the language features and syntax will be almost the same.

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I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. On one side we might get stuck on a local maximum as all languages stick to the universally established features to be marketable, on the other side it seems that some arguably objectively useful abstractions crystallize, which makes things easier for everyone.

I think (hope) that Academia, or individuals, would still be able to churn out "original" languages if there were no immediate need in industry.

The problem is that these features get watered down as they make the jump. There’s a very clear scala > java > php feature pipeline, but features get worse with every leap. The way lambdas work in scala is better than java which is better than php. I wish languages would solve these problems in a way that nicely fits the language, instead of copying the subset of the feature which they can make compatible.

Maybe the programming world has become too networked and there’s a lack of original thought when implementing language features.

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