Five Programming Languages Likely to Disappear Within the Next 20 Years
The article examines why Ruby, Visual Basic, Haskell, Perl, and Objective‑C are losing popularity and argues that without community and vendor support these languages may fade away over the next two decades, while newer languages continue to dominate development.
In the quest for productivity, many new programming languages emerge, but only a few become mainstream, leaving older languages to risk obsolescence.
Historically, languages like COBOL were dominant in the 1960s‑70s for banks and government, yet today they are rarely seen.
The article boldly predicts five programming languages that could disappear in the next 20 years.
Ruby : Launched in 1999, Ruby gained rapid popularity for its ability to build applications quickly, especially with the Ruby on Rails framework released in 2004. After a decade of strong rankings, Ruby’s decline is attributed to slower execution speed compared to JavaScript, Go, and Python, and a lack of significant evolution.
Visual Basic : Often disliked by developers, Visual Basic was introduced by Microsoft in 1991 for Windows development. Its usage declined sharply after C# was released in 2000, offering cleaner syntax, broader functionality, and better support for cloud and mobile platforms.
Haskell : An academic‑oriented language created decades ago, Haskell’s steep learning curve limits its user base. Its last stable release was in 2010, and interest is waning as newer functional languages emerge.
Perl : Once praised in the late 1980s as a versatile scripting language, Perl’s popularity plummeted after Python’s arrival in 1991, which offered simpler syntax and better scripting capabilities. Perl usage has steadily declined over the past 15 years.
Objective‑C : For over two decades, Objective‑C was the primary language for macOS and iOS development. However, since Swift’s 2014 release, developers have migrated to Swift due to its modern features, automatic memory management, and strong Apple support, leaving Objective‑C on a path to eventual retirement.
In summary, while these languages show declining trends, their ultimate disappearance is not guaranteed; sustained community and vendor investment could revive them, but newer, more efficient alternatives are likely to dominate.
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