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Ghosts in the Machine: 12 Coding Languages That Never Took Off

softwaredeveloper.com — "Whether it's infighting among creators, bad marketing, new technologies, or just plain being crummy, there are almost as many reasons why coding languages didn't become popular as there are programming languages." The article examines ALGOL 68, Befunge, REBOL, ColdFusion, brainf*ck, Java2k, INTERCAL, VRML, SMIL, Haskell, Delphi and PowerBuilder.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 13, 2007

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  • scoreboard27, on 10/11/2007, -2/+66If the ***** name could not live as a coding language, one can only hope that name returns as an energy drink. Or a dating site.
  • MikeonTV, on 10/11/2007, -1/+50I have gone exclusively LOLCode now.
    http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/01/lolcode/
  • voodooatl, on 10/11/2007, -2/+48Delphi is still used a lot
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+40Delphi never took off?! Are you friggin ***** me?
  • danielsan1701, on 10/11/2007, -0/+35It seems that at least three of these languages were designed to be difficult and non-user-friendly; it shouldn't be a surprise that they aren't popular.

    Oh, and anyone remember what happened the last time someone declared ColdFusion dead?
    http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/5/25/Todays-Irresponsible-Journalism-Award-Goes-To-Mary-Brandel
  • micklerlop, on 10/11/2007, -2/+37how could ColdFusion be dead? there is a huge community out there. CF8 is about to be released. Adobe is throwing a huge part for CF developers at MAX. Bank of America runs almost the entire consumer site with CF. I'd love get some books on ***** thou... what a name.

  • pixelat3d, on 10/11/2007, -0/+30Dude is totally wrong about Delphi... comparing it to VB just shows how little he actually knows about the language.
  • Dyogenez, on 10/11/2007, -4/+32ColdFusion never took off? I guess 75 out the fortune 100 companies just isn't enough.
    http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/proven/
  • turbovince, on 10/11/2007, -0/+18Well it doesn't take a Phd to know that brainf*ck and begunge are languages that just can't take off, no explanations needed (DUH!).
    Plus, the guy is wrong about Delphi, there was a time where nearly EVERYONE was using Delphi.
  • rdubb, on 10/11/2007, -3/+18absolutely wrong about delphi and coldfusion...
  • RickySan65, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13I gues it's on the list because the list was compiled by someone with a slight c/c++ bias, this always tend to happen, bit like apple vs microsoft.. fanboys and all..

    As you said delphi is used a lot, a lot of very good commercial applications are still being developed in Delphi. Some articles just are meant to written, or read for that matter..
  • stevedclarke, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14Delphi. Dead. I didn't know.
  • pebecker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11The author of the article doesn't have a clue about Delphi. I've developed in Delphi for years in the U.S.A., and there is no shortage of work.

    The "hello world" program shown is intended by the author to show how hard it is to code Delphi. What they neglected to say is that that code shown is generated automatically. There is no user written code at all in that example, save the title. Based on the declaration of Label1, I assume that someone started with a blank form, dragged a label onto it, and set the label caption to "Hello, World!". No different than what you might do in VB or C++ Builder.

    Not impressed. I agree with RickySan65 - this article was likely written by someone with a C bias. Before you slam me, know that I write in C and VB too, and still prefer Delphi.
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12Delphi is still used by Cheat Engine. ^_^
  • zeejay, on 10/11/2007, -1/+12The article is about languages that "never took off" -- NOT languages that are dead. ColdFusion and Delphi are still widely used. But they both saw a popularity surge, followed by going comatose in terms of marketshare.
  • h4rdcor3, on 10/11/2007, -2/+12CF dead? thats the only thing my office codes in. and if it is dead why are they beta testing CF8?
  • heavyal, on 10/11/2007, -0/+10This guy is obviously a biased retard. Delphi still kicks butt imo. Fastest way to get a custom db-to-gui solution built for those one-off projects, bar none.
  • Herolint, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9I can see why somebody would compare Delphi to VB since both let you drag form elements onto forms and then connect code to them in an event-driven mannor. What I don't understand is how somebody could mistakenly think that their similarities went beyond that. Delphi always has been what VB could only wish to be in Microsoft's wildest dreams.
  • AstroZombie138, on 10/11/2007, -4/+13Coldfusion was actually very nice for rapid application development and web -> RDBMS capabilities. I suspect it never took off because of the steep price tag (~$1k for a smaller server, $5k for the larger servers). It would be great if Adobe would realize it was dying and give it away for free. I do think they could make a lot of money on their authoring tools and still maybe sell the enterprise editions, support contracts, etc. Otherwise CFML is ded.

    Powerbuilder was used a lot in the early to mid 90s - I don't know why it is on there.

    VRML was just a bad idea :)
  • cyfer2000, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9I would like take Delphi out and put Objective C++ in.
  • anti-net, on 10/11/2007, -0/+8I believe Skype is built in Delphi and so is Spybot Search & Destroy!
  • greystar, on 10/11/2007, -7/+14ColdFusion IS NOT DEAD! When are people going to give up that argument? It's in use by most of the Fortune 500, just like ASP.NET, because most large companies are so vast that they use multiple languages. CF8 is in PUBLIC BETA right now! Does that seem dead to anyone?
  • JQP123, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7"There simply isn't a strong need for a VB alternative, and given the strengths of VB, the continued decline of Delphi seems inevitable." VB had a number of serious weaknesses that Delphi did not. For starters, VB was never designed, it was grown piecemeal. Eventually, it became such an unruly mess that MS had no choice but to completely re-design it for .NET. In my opinion, MS intentionally tried to structure VB in such a way as to limit the language to a strictly controlled, in-house development environment. For example, the fact that the runtime library (and it's many versions) along with any language extensions and components were installed in the system folders. Not everyone caught on though and some foolish people attempted to commercially distribute software written in VB. Over time, lots of people (myself included) started to shun any software written in VB on general principal. "VB" became almost synonymous with "amateur".
  • sLydE, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9ColdFusion is alive, and still being used in the terrible production apps in the company I used to work for. Oh, and they still use powerbuilder in the call center
  • adolfojp, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Delphi is the only way to go when you want to write Windows apps with the ease and power of C# but down to the metal without a virtual machine. They even have a version of Turbo Delphi that is free to download.

    It was a shame to see Kylix die. Multi platform portability would bring Delphi back into popularity.

    / There is an open source version and IDE for Delphi. Google Lazarus.
  • joe90210, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6why did this guy decide to add languages like ***** and intercal to a list with real languages? also haskell isn't dead, it might not be used in buisness but it's heavily in use by academic researchers
  • loqqq, on 10/11/2007, -6/+12They forgot Ruby (I guess we could wait until 2009 to make it official).
  • Hurdy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Eiffel would be a good addition to the list...
  • EruLabs, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6BrainF*ck was NEVER supposed to take off. It was written for amusement and to mess with programmers.
  • arcticsoft, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6My thoughts exactly!! If it is so dead, why did they release version 8? When I read that Coldfusion was dead, all credibility of the writer went down the bog!
  • adolfojp, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6ColdFusion is way to expensive to be able to compete in such a crowded market. Last time I checked its standard server software costs about $1300 and its enterprise version $6000. And that doesn't even include the OS that it runs on. Servers that run ROR, Python, PHP and Java are available for free. An ASP.NET server will cost about $400.

    Unless ColdFusion offers something absolutely remarkable that is not available anywhere else, it doesn't give developers an incentive to make such a big investment.
  • brianjlowry, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9@kevin45

    Man, where have you been the past 5 years? That language has been dead since it left Allaire. Spaghetti code is out - indefinitely. And while I'm at it... even if you went with a language like Coldfusion... why pay for it when you have free alternatives like PHP?

    Edit: Wrong reply button. My bad.
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I maybe off with the correct version, but ALGOL inspired the birth of bachus-nauer notation, which is used in help files everywhere.
  • Zehuti, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Except the title is "12 Coding Languages That Never Took Off"
  • dutter, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6I've been on the receiving end of CF flames as well. Heaven forfend anyone ask why the startup whiz kids are going with LAMP instead of CF, or why there just aren't as many CF job listings on metasites like Indeed or Simply Hired.
  • SocialPoison, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9Cold Fusion is the engine behind myspace... so I'd say it's got some sense of notoriety.
  • pebecker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Yeah, tell that to Europe. See my comments earlier in this thread.
  • heartcoldfusion, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I agree. I often wonder why Coldfusion is included in these lists so much. It's used on many government sites of all different levels from state to national, and it has an almost cult following.
  • carolinaws, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5You heard wrong. Learn HTML, JavaScript, AND PHP, Rails, ASP.NET or maybe Perl to get into the web development industry. CF is a great language for quick web development but it is not "necessary" to learn.
  • inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I'm *IN* web development (as well as multimedia) and what you really need to know is (depending on where you work) HTML, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. Knowing ASP.NET is a must if you're working in a MS-dominated house, but most startups run LAMP, and a bunch of older houses are moving from MS to LAMP.
  • cracker42, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6You don't have to be a ColdFusion fanboy to realize that this article is just plain wrong. To say that CF "never took off" is like saying Apple never took off. They may not be the industry standard but jesus they at least have a share of the market.
  • theNazz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I used to love VRML... I wish it would have been developed to handle the newer codecs.
  • counterplex, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4ColdFusion converted to being a very complex JSP taglib after CF5 I think. The idea being there is no need for a specific ColdFusion app server - you can use any J2EE container to serve up CF pages. The JSP extension you might be seeing on the BoA page would indicate they're using a current version of ColdFusion or, as you indicated, possibly just Java.
  • TroubleInMind, on 10/11/2007, -9/+13Cold Fusion fanboys. Christ on a crutch. What next? I suppose a link to Ron Paul using Cold Fusion on his iPhone.
  • mutroniii, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Haskell rocks. You can do so much in just a few lines, though you might need to spend a long time thinking about those itty bits of code... If you've never done any Functional programming, do yourself a favor and check it out.
  • cfjedimaster, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Many government agencies make use of CF, so I'll echo Kevin. It is as secure as you code it. Along with that, it comes with features to cover your butt in case you do forget to code with security in mind.
  • TOndrej, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Yawn, another "Delphi is dead" non-sense.
    Buried as inaccurate :-)

    Good Quality Applications Built With Delphi
    http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Good_Quality_Applications_Built_With_Delphi
  • AlphaToxic, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Actually Delphi is a very nice and easy to learn language. Also, as it is object oriented visual Pascal, it just forces you to write easily readable and well structured code. There are lots of minor details to that, like the fact that "and", "or" and so on are words instead of special characters so you can't forget to put the interval between them and the variables. Often you can easily tell if a programmer has started with a pascal-like language or a C-like one.

    BTW, this thing here http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/index.php (the "Korean Media Player") is entirely written in Delphi and I dare to say that this is by far the BEST media player for windows...
  • Yazilliclick, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5He didn't say it's dead, he said it didn't take off. And it certainly didn't. Some places picked it up because it was neat and invested in the tools and software and continue with it but it is hardly widely used.
  • reidypeidy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Isn't much of MySpace written in ColdFusion? Knowing that, it should be dead!
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