Re^4: I failed today (Backwards Compatibility)

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

Perversely, despite cruelly abandoning its many happy and loyal Python 2 users (by breaking Backward compatibility), Python won the language adoption war! At least, it's been leading the TIOBE index for quite a while now (from Perl holds its own against Python Ruby et al, note that Perl (No. 6) was one ahead of Python (No. 7) in the TIOBE Index back in 2008).

The Why Perl Didn't Win essay argues that this is because an ecosystem focused on maintaining existing projects, rather than creating new projects, will be less attractive for new projects :) ... and being adopted for new projects is how you win the language war in the long run.

This topic is analysed in more detail at: Organizational Culture (Part VI): Sociology

Jan 2026 Update: As indicated here, Perl improved to eleventh place at TIOBE index during 2025 ... might even make it back into the top ten.

See also : Comparing Programming Languages References