newbie questions and comments

["McLagan, Doug" <address@hidden>]

the ll1 conference website got me to reading about various things, including
the dylan language.  very interesting.

i'm a newbie who sort of fell into programming through visual basic, then
realized the need to move on.  python was next, still in progress, before
venturing into the big world of c, c++, java.  understand that lisp is
important.  intrigued by ruby, but also looking at other things, spending
some time trying to look far ahead, as it were.

wondering like everyone what will catch on next.  python is obviously coming
on strong, but it might have limitations that will leave room for something
else to become big.

comments on any of this would be welcome.  also, specifically, dylan appears
to be proprietary.  is this correct, and if so, is that a big problem for
the language?  are there any similar open-source projects?

thanks, and i'll try not to be a pain.

DM