> What hasn't happened is a fundamental change to programming languages since the 1960s
I think the rise of HLLs is an example of a fundamental change. It was still reasonable to be hand-writing assembler for lots of applications in the '60s.
Sure, but HLLs are decades old and ubiquitous by the 80s. There's no reason to think PLs are going to fundamentally change in 20 years. They could, but it's just speculation at this point.
The argument over whether C was fast enough to obviate the need to write in assembly raged across the pages of Dr Dobb's Journal and Byte Magazine well into the mid '80s.
Which while true for home micros, was already a proven fact since the early 60's in the big warehouse mainframes, with the Algol derived systems programming languages.
And that supports the argument that PL evolution is slow and unlikely to fundamentally change in 20 years time. Anyway, while people where arguing over C vs Assembly, there were Lisp and Smalltalk machines that didn't become the future.
I think the rise of HLLs is an example of a fundamental change. It was still reasonable to be hand-writing assembler for lots of applications in the '60s.