We've entered an era where new languages are almost never used. The Go and Rust story are exceptions. This is the long thin tail of new language adoption.
I disagree. The same was said when perl dominated before Ruby and Python came along. And Pascal, C and C++ before that. Nowadays Nim, Crystal, Rust, Go, F#, D, Zig, JavaScript, Haskell, and more are all viable options for application development.
We have more viable programming languages than ever.
From a quick glance over a few dozen pages of job ads, it's mostly Java & PHP, with a bit of JS, Python and C# here and there and some C/C++ in embedded. Saw 2 node.js ads, as well as a COBOL and a Kotlin too.
So, yes, maybe they are viable. But.. used ? they're blimps in the radar next to the big ones.
+ Node.js is plentiful
+ Golang is up and coming
+ Some elixir
+ Haskell is pretty rare but it shows up as a secondary language
+ Java and php are plentiful but these tend to be large, older corporate gigs
+ Rust is rare
+ No crystal/nim/f#/zig/D that I've seen
Obviously anecdotal and your case my differ.
It's more of a research language useful as a vehicle for exploring new concepts and approaches. Target audience is probably other programming language researchers.
> Programming languages researchers are like fashion designers and "research languages" like Haskell and Idris are like runway looks. Nobody expects people to go around snakes on their bodies. They're pushing the boundaries of art and science and showing what's possible.
And just like in fashion, the runway looks eventually change what people are wearing. Rust’s memory management would never exist in its current form if Cyclone hadn’t already shown it was possible.
Production-history without expansive libs is probably bespoke and half a complete library (eg rust/go, having half of what you want, and missing the other half) is boutique :-)
As so often, Alan Perlis said it best: "In a 5 year period we get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the 5 year period will begin."