> I would love something like that too use as a macro pad: keys that have arbitrary meaning you can reference. Keys that behave differently depending on context, and show you the context in real-time. That would be incredibly useful.
You might want to have a look at Elgato's Stream Decks.
Your "different approach" sounds almost exactly like the approach proposed in the fine article for the "ESP too small" case (a case which you assume as a given).
i regularly use K (an APL descendant) as "pseudo-code".
in fact, i regularly _think_ about problems in an array-programming fashion, heavily inspired by K. when jotting them down, i often use K. when turning them into actual code to run, it's mostly immaterial if i then use K, J, numpy, julia, etc. the general approach translates well into a multitude of array programming varieties.
as such, i don't believe your point 5 holds. this way of thinking is certainly off mainstream, as is, e.g constraint programming, but there are niches where people use it highly productively. you won't necessarily glean that from the output coming from those niches, though.
worth noting, at the end of christine's update mentioned above:
"I do not plan to make any future update posts about the V programming language in the future. The V community is something I would really rather not be associated with. This is an edited-down version of the post that was released last week (2020 M06 17).
"As of the time of writing this note to the end of this post and as far as I am aware, I am banned from being able to contribute to the V language in any form. I am therefore forced to consider that the V project will respond to criticism of their language with bans. This subjective view of reality may not be accurate to what others see."
duckdb is ~7 years old by now. it was quite popular long before it became 1.0. heck, even motherduck has been founded 4 years ago.