Re: What's this, a bug caused by a language quirk?
> what is the point of these new languages other than an ego trip for its developers and a lock-in to the environment.
Would you then prefer coding in FORTRAN IV or COBOL, since newer languages are just ego trips? Of course not. No language can ever guarantee absence of bugs, but improvements can be made nevertheless.
Ob car analogy: Modern cars are much safer that what people drove in the 1960's, but fatalities still sadly occur. That does not mean all the improvements were pointless.