These 5 Programming Languages Are Dying — Are You Still Using Them?

Before you invest months learning a language, make sure it still has a future.

Aashish Kumar

21 Jun 2025 — 4 min read

Photo by Stanislav Ferrao on Unsplash

Technology moves fast — but some languages are being left behind.

These 5 Programming Languages Are Dying — Are You Still Using Them?

“Old code never dies — it just gets archived in legacy systems.”

Technology is constantly evolving. What was once cutting-edge can quickly become outdated, and nowhere is this more evident than in programming languages. While some languages grow stronger with time (hello, Python), others fade into obscurity, maintained only by legacy projects or die-hard fans.

In this article, we’ll look at five programming languages that are well past their prime — and ask the question: why are we still using them?

1. Perl

The “Swiss Army Chainsaw” That Cut Too Deep

There was a time in the late ’90s and early 2000s when Perl was the go-to language for scripting, web development, and sysadmin tasks. Its motto? “There’s more than one way to do it.” And that was both its charm — and its curse.

my $string = "Hello, world!"; 
$string =~ s/world/Perl/; 
print "$string\n";  # Output: Hello, Perl!

Perl’s syntax flexibility became notorious for producing “write-only code” — scripts so convoluted that even their authors struggled to maintain them. Over time, Perl lost ground to Python, which offered cleaner syntax, better documentation, and a growing community.

Still in use? Yes — especially in bioinformatics, some finance sectors, and legacy systems.
Why it’s dying: Community stagnation, lack of modern tooling, and complex readability.
Time to move on? If you’re starting a new project, there’s almost always a better choice.

2. COBOL

Still Running the Banks — But at What Cost?

COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) was created in 1959 — and it’s still quietly running in the background of major banks, insurance companies, and government agencies. It’s the language of mainframes and batch processing.

But here’s the problem: the number of COBOL developers is dwindling fast. When legacy systems need updates, there’s a mad scramble to find anyone who still speaks COBOL — often retired programmers brought back on contract.

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 
PROGRAM-ID. HelloWorld. 
PROCEDURE DIVISION. 
    DISPLAY "Hello, COBOL world!". 
    STOP RUN.

Still in use? Widely — but only in legacy systems, especially in finance.
Why it’s dying: It’s old, verbose, and nobody wants to learn it.
Time to move on? Unless you’re in a niche legacy maintenance role, yes.

3. Objective-C

The iOS King That Got Swiftly Replaced

Before Swift took over Apple’s development ecosystem, Objective-C was the de facto language for building iOS and macOS applications. It’s powerful, but its C-style syntax is clunky and off-putting to new developers.

Apple officially released Swift in 2014 — and has been pushing it hard ever since. Swift is safer, faster, and easier to read. The shift is clear: Apple’s APIs are now Swift-first, and younger developers are rarely learning Objective-C.

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h> 
 
int main(int argc, const char * argv[]) { 
    @autoreleasepool { 
        NSLog(@"Hello, Objective-C!"); 
    } 
    return 0; 
}

Compare that to Swift’s elegant one-liner:

print("Hello, Swift!")

Still in use? In legacy iOS/macOS apps and older codebases.
Why it’s dying: Swift is more modern, readable, and future-proof.
Time to move on? If you’re starting anything Apple-related, there’s no reason to use Objective-C anymore.

4. Visual Basic (VB.NET)

The Beginner-Friendly Dinosaur of the Microsoft World

Visual Basic was once beloved for its simplicity — especially among hobbyists and business analysts. It made it easy to build Windows apps with a drag-and-drop interface and readable syntax. VB.NET extended that into the .NET framework.

But Microsoft has shifted its focus entirely to C# for .NET development. In fact, Visual Basic’s development is effectively on life support. While it’s still technically supported, new features are unlikely.

Module HelloWorld 
    Sub Main() 
        Console.WriteLine("Hello, Visual Basic!") 
    End Sub 
End Module

Still in use? Yes, particularly in older enterprise applications and internal tools.
Why it’s dying: Microsoft has deprioritized it, and most devs are moving to C#.
Time to move on? Absolutely — VB’s sun is setting.

5. Lua

The Little Scripting Language That Could — But Didn’t Scale

Lua gained popularity as a lightweight, embeddable scripting language — especially in game development. Titles like World of Warcraft and Roblox used Lua for modding and scripting. But outside of those niches, it never really caught on.

Why? Lua lacks a comprehensive standard library, has limited tooling, and doesn’t integrate well into large-scale software development pipelines. While it’s efficient for small tasks and embedded systems, developers are often pushed toward more robust scripting alternatives like Python or JavaScript.

print("Hello, Lua!")

Still in use? In gaming, embedded systems, and some IoT devices.
Why it’s dying: Limited adoption outside its niche, and better options exist.
Time to move on? Unless you’re in game modding or embedded dev — probably.

Final Thoughts: Should You Drop These Languages?

Not all “dying” languages are useless. Many still power critical infrastructure or exist in long-lived legacy systems. However, clinging to them for new projects often means missed opportunities — for community support, modern tooling, better performance, and long-term maintainability.

If you’re still using these languages, ask yourself why. If the answer is “because we always have,” it might be time to start exploring more modern alternatives.