We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used. The Go and Rust story are exceptions. This is the long thin tail of new language adoption.
> We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used
I disagree. The same was said when perl dominated before Ruby and Python came along. And Pascal, C and C++ before that. Nowadays Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell, and more are all viable options for application development.
We have more viable programming languages than ever.
I live in a moderately large urban area in france (~800k inhabitants) and for your list ("Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell") I've never seen any local job ad for any of those except JS and Go, and only saw a bit of Haskell at the university.
From a quick glance over a few dozen pages of job ads, it's mostly Java & PHP, with a bit of JS, Python and C# here and there and some C/C++ in embedded. Saw 2 node.js ads, as well as a COBOL and a Kotlin too.
So, yes, maybe they are viable. But.. used ? they're blimps in the radar next to the big ones.
Sadly just because a language has a quality implementation and lots of libraries available and so is suitable for application development from an engineering point of view doesn't mean that PHBs are going to allow it to happen at the workplace, for various business reasons.
Languages like this are usually not meant for mainstream adoption.
It's more of a research language useful as a vehicle for exploring new concepts and approaches. Target audience is probably other programming language researchers.
> Programming languages researchers are like fashion designers and "research languages" like Haskell and Idris are like runway looks. Nobody expects people to go around snakes on their bodies. They're pushing the boundaries of art and science and showing what's possible.
And just like in fashion, the runway looks eventually change what people are wearing. Rust’s memory management would never exist in its current form if Cyclone hadn’t already shown it was possible.
Interesting analogy, but people are using Haskell, Prolog, etc. in production... if I were to stick to the comparison, I'd suggest that projects like Lighttable are more akin to the runway outfit.
Hm. Interesting, but I’d consider the languages with actual production use to be the “ready to wear” lineups. Where as things like this might be the haute couture runway looks.
That'd probably be your languages with large/cohesive libraries (I'm thinking ready to wear as in large retail).
Production-history without expansive libs is probably bespoke and half a complete library (eg rust/go, having half of what you want, and missing the other half) is boutique :-)
Sure. But rust was not possible without all the research and little prototype languages. I think it’s good that many people are trying many things (as long as they clearly report their findings).
People have been saying this for many decades, and they've been wrong ever since. (I ran across, at one point, someone mentioning in the 1960s or so that they were loathe to design a new programming language because how could it possibly compete with existing languages like assembler, FORTRAN, or Lisp?) There are constantly new niches opening up and new areas of growth that a programming language can grow up within. It's a big world out there. There's probably a language stumbling backwards into success right now in China neither you nor I have heard of.
As so often, Alan Perlis said it best: "In a 5 year period we get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the 5 year period will begin."
I'd say this claim falls victim to a survivorship bias viewpoint. I suppose new languages are now used with more or less the same uptake as in any earlier "era" of software. (I.e. tons of "old" languages, which were new when published, also died with basically no users. Conversely, there's also Nim, Zig, TypeScript, Crystal, .......... just from the top of my head. Totally making their rounds and worth watching, and with people trying to use them.)
I disagree. The same was said when perl dominated before Ruby and Python came along. And Pascal, C and C++ before that. Nowadays Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell, and more are all viable options for application development.
We have more viable programming languages than ever.