As time passes and programmers find new and easier ways of working their craft, new coding languages spring up like mushrooms, with a select few going on to become staples in the coding community. One unfortunate side effect of this progress is the relegation of older languages to the dustbin of history. If a language is not able to retain its value over time, its user base will flee and it will either fade into obscurity or become the foundation of a newer, better language.

We recently got a reminder of this process with COBOL. This used to be the go-to language for many U.S. banks and government agencies in the 1960s and 1970s, but was eventually replaced by simpler and more efficient alternatives. However, the systems built with COBOL remained in place, and when some government agencies found they needed to overhaul their unemployment system by updating code, there were practically no developers available with knowledge of the language.

Just as COBOL’s star has faded, many of our current programming languages are destined to disappear. Our goal with this article is to break down 5 languages which we think will disappear in the next 20 years. We understand that some of them might be close to the hearts of those who use them, so just let us preface the list by saying that it is only our personal take and prediction.

1. Ruby

Ruby became an instant hit after its release in 1999, and programmers were most impressed by how quickly it allowed them to build applications. Not long after, the Ruby on Rails framework was released in 2004 and catapulted Ruby to the top of coder favorite lists as the two names became nearly synonymous. It enjoyed a solid decade in the limelight, but the last 10 years have not been kind to it and Ruby now finds itself on our list.

So why is Ruby disappearing? One factor that is contributing to its decline is speed. Its applications tend to run slower than many other popular choices like Javascript, GO, and even Python (under certain frameworks). The three latter creations have evolved to meet the requirements of the time, while Ruby is stuck in the past in many ways. For example, the MVC architecture that made Ruby on Rails a prodigy of its time is now considered old-fashioned and unwieldy by many coders.

#opinion #ruby #web dev #programming languages