Re:Viability of Unpopular Programming Languages (2018)
by zmmmmm on Wednesday April 01, 2020 @11:43PM
(#22756019)
I think it would be more along the lines of:
"if all the existing volunteer mainteners for this language went down in a single airplane accident, would businesses who depend on this language step up and fund its maintenance and could they support that organically from the margins of their business?"
When the answer is yes you have a language that is going to live forever independent of whether it's a fad this year or not etc. Which is partly why I think some seriously out-of-fashion languages keep going surprisingly strongly. Meanwhile some pretty awesome languages just wither on the vine.
"if all the existing volunteer mainteners for this language went down in a single airplane accident, would businesses who depend on this language step up and fund its maintenance and could they support that organically from the margins of their business?"
When the answer is yes you have a language that is going to live forever independent of whether it's a fad this year or not etc. Which is partly why I think some seriously out-of-fashion languages keep going surprisingly strongly. Meanwhile some pretty awesome languages just wither on the vine.