A language is only good when the zealots don't have to constantly push it and persuade people to adopt it, it happens on it's own due to it's usability and features.
Even a language pushed by corporations, zealots, and a framework usually dies. Fizzling is absolutely the normal fate of any new language, absent a miracle.
Even a language that seems to have everything going for it can fade out. Ruby's success used to be thought assured. Then it suddenly wasn't. Python has run the oddest course. It plodded along for two decades, almost imploded on the 2->3 transition, and then got its miracle.
Ah the Python example from people that weren't there I guess.
Zope in the early 2000's, Guido's employment at NIST, CNRI, Google, Dropbox and now Microsoft. CERN and Fermilab pushing for it during 2003 onwards.
Ruby suffered the same fate as languages that are tied to a killer framework, then the killer framework is no longer seen as the new hottest thing to have on the CV. Yet, without Rails, no one would have cared enough for Ruby to matter.
Google put up 1.5M Rust LOC in Android runtime and seeing number of serious exploitations reduced, a single developer created a stable gpu kernel driver in only 3 months are definitely interesting results. Even in your example, firefox’s Rust code amount is catching up with C/C++.
"we here at Embark been using this for over a year in production now for our Creative Playground & custom Rust engine that uses Vulkan, and hope it can be of use for more developers as we continue to build it out."
They talk about using Rust for over 5 years, and yet they delivered nothing, and switched to using Unreal for their commercial games and upcoming games (2 new titles already announced with Unreal)
Lot of buzz for nothing, just like with Firefox
Rust doesn't seem capable enough for that kind of projects
Other comments mentions pieces of the Android Runtime being written in Rust, and that seems all Rust is able to provide, by-proxy uses
Still waiting for something like Kubernetes for Rust to really push the industry forward, so far, no bueno
That's not because your project is on github that you have delivered something, it's still at the WIP/experimental phase, and its been like that for years
I don't have a top language, and to be honest i am a bit sad about the state of programming languages these days, it's all over the place and nobody seems to hate bloatware, so we get slow stuff that compiles slow all over the place
And i don't believe in "one language to rule them all" moto
If people aren't pushing then people won't use it. There are plenty of niche and esoteric languages that could be considered "good" (whatever that means) but aren't being actively used.
I mean, this pretty much describes rust. Its merits speak for themselves, and people who were skeptical of it and try it very quickly find out the language is really well designed and pleasant to use (once you get used to the borrow checker).
There are a ton of niche languages that have very enthusiastic fanbases, but they don't get the same snowball effect rust has gotten because it's a great language on so many dimensions.
It seems contradictory that a good language wouldn't have proponents trying to get people to use it. I'm not sure I've ever heard of a language people think is good but don't think other people should use.
No famous mainstream language in use today, has ever been adopted based on "it happens on it's own due to it's usability and features".
Before you rush out to write something like C, remember that it only came to use thanks to AT&T, Bell Labs and UNIX.