The real question is whether a programming language that has lost traction, mindshare, and focus ever gained it back? It's probably no coincidence that Python's rise was at the same time of Perl's stagnation.
I think what happened to Perl is that its approach (puns, whimsy, ornate symbols, multiple ways to do the same thing) suddenly became extremely unfashionable with the rise in popularity of more clean and simple languages like Python and Ruby (although Ruby had a much more whimsical US community in the past, it's not part of the core language community in the same way.)
Almost overnight everything about Perl seemed very old fashioned. Maybe their style of programming will suddenly become popular again? But doesn't look like it's coming soon.
I don't think those things became unfashionable, it was just not what people who were until then (late 90ies) not programmers were looking for. They were looking to get shit done (tm) and verbosity (Java) or clarity (Python) suited what they were looking for much better than Perl (a clever language for clever programmers).
Python is actually a good example of such language. I feel like it started to stagnate around a decade ago(slow adoption of Python 3, poor packaging, Ruby on Rails winning over Django etc) but then it has reinvented itself in the area of ML/AI. Similarly but less impressively, Java 8 has slowed down the rate of flow of Java devs to newer languages.
I would say yes, but only in the form of a new language with differences from the older forms.
Scheme -> Racket
Common Lisp -> Clojure
ML -> Haskell
If perl followed this format and did a rebrand that is essentially the same thing, they would be more likely to pick up traction. Perl just in the name itself gives me a certain connotation. Typically the older variants of languages for the most part die off, while the newly branded ones gain traction, but carrying on the same basic mission. This last one is particularly sad to me personally the Standard ML ecosystem is still to this day incredibly robust and production-tier, and yet it is very much a dead language.
I don't understand the lineage that you've charted here. ML is older than all the others; Haskell is older than Clojure and PLT/Racket; Common Lisp is older than Racket/PLT, etc. The arrows don't make any sense.
chrisseaton|6 years ago
Almost overnight everything about Perl seemed very old fashioned. Maybe their style of programming will suddenly become popular again? But doesn't look like it's coming soon.
brnt|6 years ago
Scarbutt|6 years ago
didymospl|6 years ago
threwawasy1228|6 years ago
Scheme -> Racket Common Lisp -> Clojure ML -> Haskell
If perl followed this format and did a rebrand that is essentially the same thing, they would be more likely to pick up traction. Perl just in the name itself gives me a certain connotation. Typically the older variants of languages for the most part die off, while the newly branded ones gain traction, but carrying on the same basic mission. This last one is particularly sad to me personally the Standard ML ecosystem is still to this day incredibly robust and production-tier, and yet it is very much a dead language.
gmfawcett|6 years ago
nicwolff|6 years ago