[dalke]

You should clarify what you mean by "extinct".

No one speaks Old English, which became Middle then modern English. But the language changed over time, so there was no one point where it went "extinct."

So, is FORTRAN 66 "extinct"? What about Python-0.9? If so, then K&R C is dying.

It is not the case that there are so many programming languages because "they all do some things better than others". The BASIC interpreter I did in BASIC was a lousy language. But it was fun to write.

Languages also exist for reasons that have little to do with quality. Javascript got its start, and oddities, because of internal political reasons at Netscape. What it does "better" is it's in web browsers, but that's a post-hoc justification, as every popular language is in use in part because people use.

It is hard to know what the future will bring. Perhaps when the Great AI awakens in 2355 there will be no computer languages as the Great AI will do all the work for us.

But until then, no, I see little likelihood of a grand unification. Excel, for example, is a very specialized programming language with its own IDE that is unlike, say, Java and Java development environments. It's so different that most people don't even recognize Excel as a programming language.

[haphazardeous]

I see what you mean but try looking at it from this perspective; dinosaurs are extinct but we know they lived. and how do we know it? because we found fossils. So if find fossils, does that mean dinosaurs never went extinct? Or if the birds evolved from dinosaurs is a true statement, then that should mean they never went extinct, right? What I mean by "extinct" is exactly how the dictionaries define it "no longer in existence".

Interesting thoughts though. And you are right, I never thought of Excel as a programming langue if I'm honest.

[dalke]

Your point regarding species extinction is a good one. However, in languages, "extinct language" has a more specific meaning. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinct_language .

I believe that language extinction occurs when it's possible to point to the last living speaker of the language, or more generally, when there is no modern version of a language.

But you are right that the person who asked the question is more likely to think of the more transitional, biological meaning.

You may like this clip where Eddie Izzard goes to Friesland to "buy a brown cow" in Old English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeC1yAaWG34