I specifically added this statement to help clarify: "It's not that the future has no textual syntax at all, of course." The difference between a text file and a database is not that the database contains no text, but rather the relations between items is discretely managed.
What I'm saying is this: storing a program as a text file was understandable in the 1970's but now is what a brain-damaged, drooling Bonobo might do.
Would you store your payroll as text? Really? "Bob is too be paid eighty thousand a year;" (And I sure hope the compiler catches the misspelled 'too' or he might not get paid.)
Structure is syntax
No, structure is semantics represented by syntax. And that structure is all that counts, so we want to get there as discretely as possible. We want to get there as data. And when we do that, the syntax can be a decorator pattern; it can be what you want it to be and something else to someone else, all without modifying its core meaning. And what happens when it's just a decorator pattern? It loses its importance.