The author is right that we need to think outside the box but I think his argument is misleading. Historically, programming languages evolve and not leapfrog. I don't see why Objective-C cannot keep evolving while some other company is bold enough to research a new visual programming language that will result in a paradigm shift. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Author here. Good point, they are not mutually exclusive. I do think however it's not in Apple's culture to significantly move away from C/ObjC any time soon. For the time being, they are getting by well enough as is today. I think they'll continue to slowly evolve the language, but I'm not so keen to wait for major changes, and I'm hoping to get others onboard with me.
As a main language, I agree they're not looking to change anything for a long time coming, but they have made stuff like Quartz Composer (a graphical functional programming language) and Automator. There is a slim sliver of hope they may deem fit to create a HyperCard for the post-PC world. iOS touch interfaces would be the perfect place to reinvent programming as something other than text (since typing on a touchscreen is so painful).
Are you saying you want to take a crack at creating this new paradigm shift? Couldn't you argue that a project like RubyMotion is already doing some of what you are proposing.
No not really. Ruby is a fine text language but it offers no benefits or advantages like what I described in the article, safe maybe a REPL. But we can have that already with the Super Debugger, for example.
