[seanmcdirmid]

You can go beyond even this assumption: is the Von Neumann model of programming even necessary? Of course, dataflow languages have been around for years, but there are other models out there that might work better; e.g. see Subtext [1].

I'm a professional PL designer also, though working under the pretext of a researcher. Those of us who are disgruntled are trying to start a support group :)

[1] http://www.subtext-lang.org/

[jbrennan]

Sean, I’ve read some of your research and it’s great! I agree completely. Hell, even the concept of “to create software means some set of sequential steps” is presuming quite a bit. Although I don’t have too much experience creating software otherwise, I at least acknowledge we really barely have any concept of what we’re doing and what’s possible.