Look at PHP. Every year people say PHP got much better then in the dark ages.

Yes it got rid of it's rough edges. People solely look positive at it because it has become more familiar with mainstream OOP languages. But it has no identity anymore. It is still simpler for the web then most competitors, but it doesn't matter because you install 30 packages for an hello world anyway. The community doesn't want simplicity, they want easy, with glorious looking code.

The irony is that PHP is perceived more attractive by coders, but it's so generic now, that a newbie is unlikely to choose it.

▲

9rx 3 days ago | parent [-]

Newbies want a compelling catchphrase:

C: So powerful you can shoot your foot off!

Rust: Now that you've shot your foot off, let's not do that a second time.

Javascript: It runs on the server and in the browser.

Typescript: It runs on the server and in the browser, now with types!

In contrast,

PHP: Not sure if I want to be a templating language or general-purpose programming language.

▲

jimbokun 3 days ago | parent [-]

PHP is: see your changes by refreshing your browser. At least that was it’s initial appeal.

	▲	9rx 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not the ability to mix SQL injection vulnerabilities into the middle of your HTML? Regardless, you’re thinking of Perl/CGI. PHP did attract the Perl crowd away from Perl, but it wasn’t for that reason. That was already the norm.