- Why is JS popular? Not because it's the best language, but because it's attached to the browser, and people want to deploy apps to browsers (Figma, etc.)
- Why is shell the 8th most popular language on Github, and the 6th fastest growing? [1] Not because it's the best language, but because it's attached to the Unix kernel (specifically Linux, which has a ton of features). Software in containers and virtual machines must talk to kernels.
So then the converse is
- Why is VB no longer popular? Not because it's a worse language than it used to be (though maybe that's true), but the platform that it supported isn't as popular.
Like others said, it's probably popular for Excel and app automation, etc. But today more apps are targeting web and mobile, not Windows desktop.
- Same answer with Objective C and Swift -- people are using them to write apps for a platform. And Kotlin/Android, etc.
- Why is JS popular? Not because it's the best language, but because it's attached to the browser, and people want to deploy apps to browsers (Figma, etc.)
- Why is shell the 8th most popular language on Github, and the 6th fastest growing? [1] Not because it's the best language, but because it's attached to the Unix kernel (specifically Linux, which has a ton of features). Software in containers and virtual machines must talk to kernels.
So then the converse is
- Why is VB no longer popular? Not because it's a worse language than it used to be (though maybe that's true), but the platform that it supported isn't as popular.
Like others said, it's probably popular for Excel and app automation, etc. But today more apps are targeting web and mobile, not Windows desktop.
- Same answer with Objective C and Swift -- people are using them to write apps for a platform. And Kotlin/Android, etc.
[1] https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-languages