I don't think languages have to change slowly. It all depends on the way they are developed.

Look at C#. It's quite a young language, but it changed tremendously since it started. And now languages like Java and C++ are trying to catch up with it, at least in some aspects (like lambdas).

In version 1.0, it was mostly a copy of Java, with some enhancements, like properties and delegates. Over time, generics, lambdas (that can be manipulated programatically) and optional dynamic typing were added. And the upcoming version 5.0 will have much better support for asynchronous programming than other languages. All those changes are very useful and can change the way you program.

I think this proves that popular languages don't have to change slowly. And you can even keep backwards compatibility while doing it.

There is one query language that improves on SQL a lot: LINQ. It's tightly integrated with C#, but that's the whole point. You don't have to deal with parametrized queries or other things. The query is usually translated into SQL in the end, but the developer doesn't even know about that most of the time.

I think Stack Exchange has a very good system for what it does: Q&A. But it's not meant for discussing and I'm not sure you can easily translate it to a site like Slashdot.

Okay, let's say I support one of those sub-parties? How do I vote for them? I can't. I have to vote for the superparty they are part of and hope that the elected representative will be from the subparty I like.

I don't think that's much of a solution. Why not have one superparty and decide everything by intra-party politics? Oh, wait, we (the eastern Europe) tried that and it didn't work. I have a feeling the US system is dangerously close to that.

From time to time, new political views get wider attention in Europe. In the past it was the greens, now it's the pirates. And they get into parliaments.

I really don't think it's just an illusion of variety. And I've yet to see any such political party have any kind of success in the US.

I'm kinda starting to become a little bit of a MS fan.

You're obviously not the one paying for the licences.

My boss is. And he is thinking about migrating one of the few things we run on Linux to Windows. (Which will probably not going to happen soon, because there always seems to be something more important than modifying system that works fine.)

Granted, it may be partially caused by our inability to get good Linux admin. But that's just another factor that makes Windows look like a better choice.

Targeting those that are genetically lucky for doctors seems like a good idea. If I'm going to have a surgery, I'd rather have a lucky surgeon than an unlucky one.

So you never write any code that is OS-specific, you never use any third-party library and you never write any GUI? Good for you.

From my experience, the documentation isn't always great. And even if it is, some things just aren't obvious.

I think that the only software that's not actively developed is one that was abandoned.

If I used your definition, Windows 1.0 would be a very mature system.

If I take a screenshot with my Windows 7, it has some internal format (probably BMP), but I don't care about that. If I want to save to it a file, I open Paint and paste it in. When I click Save, the first option is PNG, other available formats are TIFF, GIF, JPEG and BMP.

I'm not sure what do you mean by "default file format", but if you mean what the Sound recording program produces by default, I think it's WAVE.

Math isn't just a language. We use some language to express the ideas in math (and each field uses its own dialect). But the language itself isn't the important part, the ideas are.

You don't need the + symbol or the integral symbol to derive the formula for the area of an ellipse. But you do need the concepts of addition and integration.

Going with your natural languages theme, think about something like Romeo and Juliet. It's written in English, but that's not the reason why it is so well accepted across continents and centuries. The story is.

What? This isn't about running the compiler on Microsoft's servers. This is about being able to access compiler's internals.

Is IronScheme good enough for you?

I think you should be able to use any .Net language to write Metro apps. The tooling (like work with XAML) won't be as great as in C# or VB, but it should work.

Why would you use Windows Server?

You don't have debit cards in the US?