Top 7 Dying Programming Languages to Avoid Studying in 2019 –2020

Since the IT landscape is constantly evolving, the programming languages that are in demand will also change in order to keep up. If you are looking to stay relevant in today’s IT world, you need to be aware of all the changes that go on so that your skills and services will continue to be in demand which includes staying away from dead programming languages or the ones that will fall out of favor in the near future. Here are the top 7 programming languages that are dying.   

Is Visual Basic Dead?  

Even though Visual Basic may not be completely dead, it is a dying language. Visual Basic has a long and illustrious history dating all the way back to its release in 1991, but with the rise of smartphones and tablets, it is becoming extinct. In the end, it lost the competition with C#, which is also built on the .NET framework. Also, according to a Stack Overflow survey, Visual Basic is the most dreaded programing language. It can be useful for developers who are just getting started since it is very approachable, but it is also viewed as a stepping stone for using something else.   

Is Objective-C Dead?  

Objective-C is currently in demand for supporting older projects, but with the rise of Swift, we have to wonder for how long. Both iOS and MacOS still use C, Objective-C, and C++, which are all framework dialects which gives it more lifetime. Swift is quickly gaining ground, it looks to be the language of the future instead of Objective-C. In any case, until Apple completely revamps both iOS and MacOS with Swift as the preferred language used for iOS app development, Objective-C will still be in demand which means that it will still be around for at least the next 5 years and probably longer.    

Is Perl Dead?   

The story of Perl is a very sad one as it went from one of the top web programming languages, but, as time went on, it became viewed as a write-only language which triggered its demise. Early on it was viewed as very useful and pragmatic, but it came with a lot of caveats. The creators of Perl started to pile on features, but they did not plan out how all of them will be synced. The developer community noticed this problem and created Perl6, but it was not enough to keep Perl in demand. In the end, it had a good run, but it would be better to forget about this language and focus on something that is popular right now.   

Is Cobol a Dead Language Now?  

Cobol is definitely out the door since companies are rapidly updating their legacy systems and without them, Cobol does not have much to offer. For large corporations, it may be too expensive to migrate to something more modern such as Java which might give it some window of existence, but it hard to see Cobol as something software development teams use to create cutting-edge software. Furthermore, Cobol is not popular with educational institutions because students are not interested in learning a legacy programming language, so you might have trouble finding a place that offers Cobol courses. For these reasons, you should stay away from Cobol.   

Is CoffeeScript Dead?  

This may be the youngest language on our list as it was released in 2009. It was originally designed to take a program’s source code, which was in CoffeeScript and create the same thing, but in JavaScript. However, as time went on, the advantages that were offered by CoffeeScript became integrated into JavaScript itself making it obsolete. Therefore, it would not make much sense to start learning this language or to hone your skills at it.    

Is Scala Dying?  

Not too long ago, Scala was viewed as the next big thing in programming, but it gradually started losing popularity and tanked out in 2016 with less 1% of developers using it. It is a very difficult language to learn since it is based on mathematical type theory and it did not do a good job of ensuring compatibility either with earlier versions of Scala or Java. There are many other usability issues, but long story short, it will not become a mainstream language like Java.   

Why is Lisp Dying?  

Lisp is dying because of its fragmented nature and its domain-specific solution style. Fewer programmers were using the same version until the point when there was no point in using it altogether. It was not possible to work out a domain-specific solution because this would result in all kinds of sub-languages that would all be different, and the Lisp code cannot be read by other languages. The problem is that it is not possible to determine if a certain symbol is a variable, operator or function` and a big chunk of code would have to be read in order to determine what it is. Because of all these reasons, it would be best to stay away from Lisp.   

Regardless of whether you are looking to get your career started in IT or you would like to take your skills to the next level, you have to constantly stay on top of industry trends. While there will continue to be developers who use these languages, you have to take into account that in the near future these languages will be replaced by more mainstream ones, therefore, it would be not useful to learn these languages.