> Maybe my perception of PL research papers is horribly skewed, but the ones I've read are as I described: conjecture unsupported by evidence. The fact that some researchers are trying to do better is laudable, but it doesn't redeem the field of PL research as a whole.

I have the totally opposite opinion: the PL academic community has shifted very much in the science direction so much so that innovative and inventive design work no longer really has a place in their conferences (contrast to the 90s, when this work dominated). Science doesn't take you very far in a design discipline, so as a result we have seen the shifts in focus that the article discusses (away from PL design, toward PL-related science topics).

> Humans naturally crave fame, and programmers are no exception. Look at all the developers with Github and Twitter profiles and blogs; are you telling me these people don't want attention?

Is anyone who does anything and puts it out there craving attention? Maybe they just want to, I don't know, share. There aren't a lot of PL groupies worshiping Roberto Ierusalimschy, for example (who is quite a modest guy in real life). I hang around these people, they don't have particularly large egos.

> We all know who Larry Wall, Matz, and Guido are.

But did you know who Roberto was? Would you be able to pick out Gilad Bracha in a grocery store? I also know who Paris Hilton is, yet she (probably) isn't a PL designer.