I think he's saying Java is recreating what C made.I don't agree since Java allows writing of code at a higher level. (with a garbage collector etc)

Every programming language sort of recreates the basics. They are the basics after all. The neat programming languages/frameworks are the ones that 'reinvent' something. Do something in a completely new way. On a programminglanguage-level it's difficult. A lot of the practices were already invented in early languages like lisp, eifel & smalltalk.

I like Ruby because it's not ashamed of taking the great parts from other programming languages and putting it together in an easily understandable language.

Nope, i'm saying is that the more you abstract and take out of the way of the coder, the quicker they can write code. Java did this to C type languages, and people got quicker. Ruby and python did this to Java. But the inverse im often told by my C colleagues is that the abstraction means you fundamentally lose control of performance. I don't agree with this statement, but what I do agree with is that if you want high level, human oriented lprogramming languages that you can quickly write code in, you need to solve very similar problems