This is obviously a bitter rant, and devolves into uncomfortably ageist territory about halfway through.
I do agree that we should be moving away from C and C++, though. It's pretty simple, really: C was a pretty good language in 1978. We didn't know a lot of things in 1978 that we do now in 2016. It now makes sense to revisit those decisions in light of nearly 40 years of practice. The so-called "PL Renaissance" has given us a whole host of new languages which have steadily chipped away at the dominance of C and C++, and I think this is a healthy trend that ought to continue.
I do agree that we should be moving away from C and C++, though. It's pretty simple, really: C was a pretty good language in 1978. We didn't know a lot of things in 1978 that we do now in 2016. It now makes sense to revisit those decisions in light of nearly 40 years of practice. The so-called "PL Renaissance" has given us a whole host of new languages which have steadily chipped away at the dominance of C and C++, and I think this is a healthy trend that ought to continue.