As far as I can tell reading here, “reference capabilities” don’t do anything that properly-used C semaphores haven’t done for near half a century. Or that their abstraction of that isn’t nicer to use than, say, Elixir’s, or better than Rust’s borrow checker for managing mutability. A code example could convince me otherwise.

Show us code that uses “reference capabilities” to do something. This “the syntax doesn’t matter” talk just comes off as bullshit to devs wanting to actually use a language. It would be better to commit to a syntax, post some damn examples on the site, and let devs get used to “reference capabilities.” If the syntax needs revising, just do that in Pony v2.

If you want devs to be enthusiastic about your language, make it easy for them to understand why they should be enthusiastic. That means code, front and center, first thing.