It might be tedious, but as an EE, I've never seen or heard of anyone using anything besides VHDL and Verilog to describe digital hardware designs. What sort of high level HDLs do people typically use, and for what purpose?
The article mentioned AutoESL, which compiles C, C++, or SystemC to Verilog/VHDL. This allows you to focus on the algorithmic, or behaviorial level. The advantages are plenty, but the main drawback is that it is one more level abstracted away from the hardware..