I think this shows that Walter has lots of compiler experience, not so much lots of language design experience. You can't get good error messages without semicolons? How can anyone say something that absurd in a serious article? Have you tried a language without them? It works just fine.
Minimizing keywords is important not because of a word shortage, but because of an overlap with words the programmer wants to use. It is obvious that if you make "i" a keyword, someone will likely murder you. But there's tons of grey area where you might be stepping on toes and getting in the way, so minimizing the amount of toe stepping is good. Especially since there is absolutely no reason to have lots of keywords.
Minimizing keywords is important not because of a word shortage, but because of an overlap with words the programmer wants to use. It is obvious that if you make "i" a keyword, someone will likely murder you. But there's tons of grey area where you might be stepping on toes and getting in the way, so minimizing the amount of toe stepping is good. Especially since there is absolutely no reason to have lots of keywords.