The notion that programming languages would accumulate more syntax as the discipline of software engineering matures and more conventions become universal, while appealing to me personally, is, in my opinion, naive. These times are not like the past centuries over which Mathematics matured, our culture has changed and it's pervading on the progress of science, we now favor instant gratification, quick results, getting started easily, all accomodating short attention spans.
Of course, that says nothing of academic and niche languages; those will develop in every way possible. But as for what's to become popular, I think programming is bound to drop more specific syntax and become increasingly like natural language. This will be facilitated not only by our culture, but by advances in AI and natural language parsing. Much like the text editors themselves will tend to be increasingly facilitated by visual and audio input, and by intelligent computer assistance, in ways envisioned by Bret Victor, instead of going the way of the full control beasts that are vim and emacs. Which is a shame just the same.
EDIT: Care to make a counter argument instead of just downvoting?
Of course, that says nothing of academic and niche languages; those will develop in every way possible. But as for what's to become popular, I think programming is bound to drop more specific syntax and become increasingly like natural language. This will be facilitated not only by our culture, but by advances in AI and natural language parsing. Much like the text editors themselves will tend to be increasingly facilitated by visual and audio input, and by intelligent computer assistance, in ways envisioned by Bret Victor, instead of going the way of the full control beasts that are vim and emacs. Which is a shame just the same.
EDIT: Care to make a counter argument instead of just downvoting?