You took just one example. And, although there weren't many cases of proprietary languages or almost-proprietary languages dying in recent years, there are, of course, examples of them dying. You just picked one where this didn't happen...
So, ActionScript would be one example. Dylan would be another. There are probably many more of lesser known proprietary languages that died never making the news.
And, looping back to the original subject: parent believes there's no danger in using an almost-proprietary language, where the evidence is that owners of proprietary languages do kill them every now and then. Do they do it all the time? -- well, no, but I didn't claim anything like that...
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As to your observation about Python 2.X -- you didn't understand in what context the argument was made. C, or any other language with a standard is warranted the lifetime that's as long as humanity is able to read and understand the standard as well as implementing it. So, 20 years will be essentially insignificant compared to the longevity of a language with a published standard.
Please don't confuse this to me advocating for every language needing a standard. Writing one severely restricts what a language can offer, while at the same time, immortalizing potentially harmful features. Going back to see, we wish today that all the str* stuff would be gone, or stuff like atoi()... but that's not an option anymore, because this stuff made it into the standard. Languages w/o one can shed their skin and remove bad decisions. But, this same feature makes them less viable for long-term projects.
So, ActionScript would be one example. Dylan would be another. There are probably many more of lesser known proprietary languages that died never making the news.
And, looping back to the original subject: parent believes there's no danger in using an almost-proprietary language, where the evidence is that owners of proprietary languages do kill them every now and then. Do they do it all the time? -- well, no, but I didn't claim anything like that...
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As to your observation about Python 2.X -- you didn't understand in what context the argument was made. C, or any other language with a standard is warranted the lifetime that's as long as humanity is able to read and understand the standard as well as implementing it. So, 20 years will be essentially insignificant compared to the longevity of a language with a published standard.
Please don't confuse this to me advocating for every language needing a standard. Writing one severely restricts what a language can offer, while at the same time, immortalizing potentially harmful features. Going back to see, we wish today that all the str* stuff would be gone, or stuff like atoi()... but that's not an option anymore, because this stuff made it into the standard. Languages w/o one can shed their skin and remove bad decisions. But, this same feature makes them less viable for long-term projects.