_Trying to improve the state of the art is a perilous journey that is likely to fail. Computer science research is far more likely to succeed, and researchers far more likely to be rewarded, if they can dress up solved problems in new clothes. One popular way to do this is by devoting significant resources researching how to overcome design deficiencies in the de facto languages of the day. Locally the state of the art improves because the languages acquire new features and extensions. But science doesn't progress. To a similar extent designing new languages appears to be an excessively popular activity._-- Adam Warner, comp.lang.functional