I think his point is not that an interpreted language is the right thing. His point is that the assumption that it must be a compiled language is the wrong thing - that we need to re-examine way more of our assumptions than we usually examine when defining the "next" language.
You can go beyond even this assumption: is the Von Neumann model of programming even necessary? Of course, dataflow languages have been around for years, but there are other models out there that might work better; e.g. see Subtext [1].
I'm a professional PL designer also, though working under the pretext of a researcher. Those of us who are disgruntled are trying to start a support group :)
Sean, I’ve read some of your research and it’s great! I agree completely. Hell, even the concept of “to create software means some set of sequential steps” is presuming quite a bit. Although I don’t have too much experience creating software otherwise, I at least acknowledge we really barely have any concept of what we’re doing and what’s possible.
