Why hardware development is hard: Verilog is weird
The problem is that Verilog/VHDL isn't a "programming language" in the sense that C, Lisp, Haskell, or Python are programming languages. So approaching them with a programming language mindset is asking for a lot of pain and misunderstanding.HDLs like Verilog and VHDL describe digital circuits, not algorithms and instructions for manipulating data. If C code is akin to instructions for getting to a grocery store and shopping for vegetables, HDL code is describing the blueprint of a house textually. Maybe the solution is building some ultra high level abstraction that can somehow encompass both problem domains, but given how difficult hardware synthesis with existing HDLs is right now I don't know if that'll happen anytime soon. And the fact that logic takes so long to synthesize and simulate really has little to do with Verilog's deficiencies; if anything it's a limitation of the register-transfer level abstraction that's currently used to design digital hardware.