The limits of my [programming] language mean the limits of my world

Programming languages are the expressive medium with which we create our software systems. In a sense they are thought-multipliers that enable us to give real-world expression to pure ideas. So we might also ask, are badly-designed ones potentially thought-inhibitors? We've come a long way from punched cards and machine language, but how smug should we be about the programming languages in common use today? Are they part of the reason why software projects are still notorious for running over time and over budget and often ship with costly flaws? In this talk, we'll take a journey through some of the highlights and lowlights in the development of our programming language ideas. We'll critically examine some of today's common practices. And we'll consider the promise of future developments to make it easier to translate our ideas into great, reliable software.