> Natural languages are considered dead when they lose their last native speaker. Similarly when the last person being able to use a programming languages dies, we can consider that language dead.
I don't think this is the right comparison. A native speaker would be more like someone who learned the language as their first or maybe second language, rather than someone who can use it at all. And by that metric, these languages are pretty much dead/dying, since they mostly have no new learners who aren't into PL history.
> since they mostly have no new learners who aren't into PL history.
They do have have new learners, that was my whole point. Whether they learn out of historical interest, to become better programmer in general, for a job, for research, or because they need it for a specific project does not matter. (And yes all those reasons apply.)
Or look how many people use it to solve Advent of Code.
As for learning them as a first language, if we applied that criteria then most programming languages would be born absolutely dead and stay there. I don't think anyone ever learned Elm or Purescript as their first language, are they dead?
I really don't get why people make such weird claims, declaring healthy and obviously alive communities to be dead. Again, things don't need to popular to be alive.
I mean, I'm pretty sure most of those companies would view APL as a liability, just like companies that still use COBOL. The question really is about whether new, significant projects are being started in these language.
People choose weird, novel, old, and esoteric languages for Advent of Code because it's fun and a way to stand out from the pack, or practice languages that might not ever get used otherwise. It's not evidence of a healthy community.
And yeah, I mean Elm and Purescript might not be "dead", but the fact that they are niche, largely non-general-purpose languages doesn't really mean that they are "healthy" either. I'd be willing to take a bet that both of these languages are effectively dead in 10 years.
There's a difference between learning a language as part of history, and actually being proficient at it. I know ALGOL 60 well enough (having tried to implement it), but I wouldn't consider myself a "native speaker" of it.
your first programming language isn't really analogous to your native language. there isn't actually a fair comparison between programming languages and natural languages. active users of a programming languages seems a fair enough measure of liveness.
Sure, but I think the question is what we mean by "active." I think "has anyone written code in this language recently" isn't a great metric, because by that measure pretty much any language that ever has had adoption is "alive" by virtue of being used in Advent of Code, as the OP points out. This just seems contrary to my intuition about what it means for a PL to be alive and have a healthy community. What I meant by "first language" was more about community growth, and there being people willing to mentor newbies, new projects being started for new users to hack on, etc.
I don't think this is the right comparison. A native speaker would be more like someone who learned the language as their first or maybe second language, rather than someone who can use it at all. And by that metric, these languages are pretty much dead/dying, since they mostly have no new learners who aren't into PL history.