So while you might be right in the limit, let's not preclude the possibility of making progress in the meantime.

None meaningfully use animation.

I was wondering if you could expand on this?

The best way I would describe it is like this. Let's say that reality is like a state computation machine. How would it be possible to create a more accurate model of reality than we have currently? It would have to go beyond words, and would have to include visual, kinaesthetic constructs. It would have to be a higher dimensional representation, to the extent that we as humans can perceive a higher dimensional representation. So this means, higher than the 1D text we have, or its 2D UI, single frame in time representation. This would look like some kind of 4D temporal model, where it's possible to see the execution of a program in its entirety, all at once. It would not only show semantic relationships in a graph sense, but also model the data structures and their operation over time. So the idea of "stocks" of data, and "flows" of data (from Donella Meadows, Systems Thinking) would apply here. React.useState might be represented as a small orb of energy, and if we setState, then it would visually change. When we assign const a = b, then it would visually indicate a flow of information from b -> a. I think this would be a much clearer representation of what a program is doing, and free up cognitive load to focus on more important tasks, as opposed to the programmer having to hold a mental model in their head. No matter how good a programmer is, if he or she possesses a better more accurate kinesthetic model of what is happening, their brain power is freed up to solve more problematic and relevant abstractions. I've been mocking up a prototype of how this would work, and the basic idea is overlaying a tool like VSCode with "vibes" as well as flow relations. It's like an annotation layer over existing code, but this is just the basic start of how it would look like. Ultimately, it would look like a mini universe. www.eusaybia.com for a non-programming context demonstration of what I'm talking about.

There are some of us that see the whole "computers and programming" thing as being about simulating or modelling reality. In other words, the "computer" that computes mathematics stuff or the "office computer" that just does paperwork are really just thin slices of a bigger conception of what we're all doing here. As is the "gaming computer" that is literally modelling realities in 3D. And on to "Spatial Computing"... A good programming language has to allow us to express our mental model of a live simulation/model into the machine for it to manifest that, for us to check against the mental model and make adjustments. So it has to be able to represent human cognitive elements for building that, for converting the cognitive model into an external live one. So to be humane it must not have any elements that are machine-oriented, like disk, memory, network, CPU/thread, etc. It has to have elements that are human-oriented, like property, identity, sequence, collection, evolution, adjacency, colour, size, words, sentences, sounds, animation, behaviour, ... (see Roget's Thesaurus for inspiration there) https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10681/pg10681-images.html

So basically the idea is, humans have a spirit and this spirit is the blueprint for our lives, it's like a virtual container which simulates every aspect of our being at a mental, emotional and physical level. If we want to make a super powerful programming language and computation machine, it would resemble this spirit and be able to define everything that our spirit does.

The optimal programming language would be able to create an AI version of a human, down to all its smallest details. Anything less is just really primitive.