I think creating a 100 year language would be cool, if it weren't for the fact that some geeks are the most fickle people in the world, who jump on the latest fad. They don't want a "100 year language", they want "The new awesome thing". Then 3 years later they want the next fashionable thing to be using.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much. It's just fashion.
You are confusing actual programmers with web 2.0 fanbois with blogs. Some people value stability and incremental improvement, but those people don't seem to write as much as the "throw everything away and use this language I read about on /b/ last night".
There is probably not a market for the 100 year language, as we don't know enough about programming to predict that far into the future. But all the languages we use today are probably "25 year langauges", which is getting there.
Yeah you're probably right about the fickle people being far more vocal than the ones just using the same language.
I'm not convinced languages are really something that need constant improvement and evolution though. There's a lot to be said for all generally using the same language over a long period of time. I'd say that's more important than which particular language it is.
A language exists to communicate ideas. Obviously you don't want a language that is ambiguous, or overly verbose. You also want a language that can express most ideas you want to express in a simple way.
But IMHO, that's been achieved already - several times over. If we never improved any computer language, and just continued using the ones we have, we'd still be able to express the ideas we have in them.
I agree @ 25 years. Further than that, maybe we won't use any programming languages at all. Who knows.
Personally, I'd love for stuff to stabilize, and for someone to put an end to this madness of having to ditch all the stuff you've learned three years ago because that skill is no longer what businesses expect.
I'm frankly sick and tired of it.
Progress is good. Too much progress can be very tiring, and gives the industry as a whole too little time to consolidate the old with the new.
Which is one reason why everybody is re-inventing the wheel all the time, both in terms of business processes as well as development methodologies.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter that much. It's just fashion.