[yacoder]

Thanks for the advice; will definitely take it on board.

It's true that the language project itself is unlikely to be monetisable (especially since the chances of it ever being used let alone popular are close to 0), but I wondered whether I could develop something along a similar vein, say a code analysis tool or some such, which could find application of language-related techniques and keep me in an area I find especially interesting.

I guess I just want to be happy as a coder; whether that requires me to be independent or can be achieved working for someone else is something I'm not yet sure about. I agree I need to leave the negative situation, I guess part of what I'm asking is how best to improve myself such that I can get a job somewhere decent.