"These six programming languages ​​will be obsolete by 2026," says a developer

I found an article here that I thought was interesting to share. It's not my own article; I just happened upon it while browsing and decided to bring it up because, according to this person, there are programming languages ​​that will be obsolete by 2026.

Note: it's important to clarify: it doesn't say they're obsolete now, but rather that they'll be obsolete by 2026, or at least that's what the title of the article implies.

Here you can see the featured image for the article. And yes, that's why I decided to make this video: it features PHP, a language I'm quite familiar with and wanted to give my opinion on.

By the way, the image appears to be AI-generated, because it has errors. For example, "Perl" is misspelled, and instead of "Java View," I think they meant Java, or maybe they meant Unity. It also features Ruby and another language I have no idea what it is.

List of "obsolete" languages

Several languages ​​are mentioned in the article:

1. Perl
2. CoffeeScript
3. Objective-C (reemplazado por Swift desde 2014)
4. Ruby
5. PHP
6. Visual Basic

In some cases, like Objective-C and Visual Basic, they've already been replaced years ago by more modern options (like Swift and C#, respectively). So it's not like they're "going to be" obsolete by 2026... they've already been for a while.

That was one of the things that caught my attention in the article: the tone suggests it's something in the future, when in reality, several of those languages ​​are already behind us.

When I read "Perl" and "CoffeeScript," I felt a bit nostalgic. I had literally heard of those languages ​​for years.

I remember that when I was starting college—about 15 years ago—we were already installing development environments with PHP, and something called Perl came along that no one really knew what it was. Since then, it felt like an outdated technology.

Something similar is happening with Java and PHP. While that doesn't mean they're obsolete, they're quite old languages. But hey, as I said, Perl was there because some legacy systems still used it.

Are they really obsolete?

To reinforce my opinion, I asked ChatGPT to show me some recent surveys. I had a hard time finding them, but here they are:

JetBrains Survey

Here you can see that Python is still going strong (powered by AI), and while HTML (which is not a programming language as such) is featured, there are also:

1. JavaScript
2. Java
3. SQL
4. C/C++
5. C#
6. Y más abajo, PHP

Perl also appears, although quite low in the ranking, and CoffeeScript is no longer listed.

Stack Overflow Survey

This survey is based more on technologies than specific languages.

According to the data:

1. JavaScript clearly dominates.
2. Python is close behind.
3. Java still has weight, although it appears lower in this survey (which seems more realistic to me).
4. PHP appears with 18.2% usage.

And yes, PHP has declined in popularity, but it's still present on many servers. According to some data (although it may be outdated), it still accounts for over 70% of website usage, mainly with Nginx or Apache.

The special case of PHP

This is the most controversial language on the list for me.

PHP has been "dying" for over a decade, according to many. But it's still alive and well, thanks mainly to frameworks like Laravel, which in my opinion is what has kept PHP relevant.

Laravel, for me, is the best PHP framework currently available. And although PHP isn't as popular as it once was, there's no denying that it's still the foundation of many web projects.

My advice: technological duality

I've always had the philosophy of learning more than one stack. I love the PHP world (and Laravel in particular), but it's also important to explore other technologies such as:

1. JavaScript: which you'll probably need if you're working with PHP.
2. Python: for its versatility. You can do everything from AI, games, desktop, automation, to web.

Having technological duality is key. We can't rely on just one technology. Even if PHP is still around, we don't know how the market will evolve.

Obsolete in 2026? Some have been obsolete since then…

To conclude, I return to the point in the article's title: "These six languages ​​will be obsolete by 2026." And my opinion is clear:

1. Several of them are already obsolete today, not in 2026.
2. PHP can't be considered obsolete if it still powers the majority of websites.
3. Some of the article's statements seemed exaggerated or poorly stated to me.

Post:

https://www.genbeta.com/desarrollo/estos-seis-lenguajes-programacion-estaran-obsoletos-2026-desarrollador-da-consejos-para-reaccionar-usas

Tecnologías y lenguajes de programación mas famosos:

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#2-programming-scripting-and-markup-languages

https://lp.jetbrains.com/cs-learning-curve-report-2024/?utm_source=chatgpt.com#
 

Other surveys:

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/