Are we getting better at designing programming languages?

[JS]

I think the next step in languages it the mutli-level 
abstraction. Right now we have the base level core programming 
and the preprocessing/template/generic level above that. There is 
no reason why language can't/shouldn't keep going. The ability to 
control and help the compiler do it's job better is the next 
frontier.

Analogous to how C++ allowed for abstraction of data, template 
allow for abstraction of functionality, we then need to abstract 
"templates"(or rather meta programming).

Unfortunately each level is less useful and more complex to 
implement but I think it will open new doors once done(similar to 
how oop changes the face of programing).

For example, why are there built in types? There is no inherit 
reason this is so except this allows compilers to achieve certain 
performance results... but having a higher level of abstraction 
of meta programming should allow us to bridge the internals of 
the compiler more effectively.

I don't see anything like this happening so depending on your 
scale, I don't think we are getting better, but just chasing our 
tails... how many more languages do we need that just change the 
syntax of C++? Why do people think syntax matters? Semantics is 
what is important but there seems to be little focus on it. Of 
course, we must express semantics through syntax so for practical 
purposes it mattes to some degree.... But not nearly as much as 
the number of programming languages suggest.