HTML is in both dreaded and loved list. It isn't even a programming language. I think you've missed the boat slightly. I maintained a VB6 application. I dislik

HTML is in both dreaded and loved list. It isn't even a programming language. I think you've missed the boat slightly. I maintained a VB6 application. I disliked doing that not because it was old, but because the code base was created into many projects, some I had no source for. Independent of that I wouldn't choose VB6 for a new project because it lacked stack traces and wasn't cross platform. Java: I don't care to program in it because the IDEs are so heavy and I don't like how the ecosystem has grown up. Go: I don't like it because it is "new" (over 10 years old), I like it because it has reflection and stack traces, it is easy to write in a lighter environment, it is cross platform, it is typed, and it prefers explicit usually. I have a large application written largely in Go. But I don't think about writing in Go. I think about the domain; Go is almost incidental. Yes, many immature developers hate old code. I don't hate C++ directly, but if you've ever had to work with a C++ code base with 3 types of strings then you may dislike working with C++ ecosystem you've ran into. People don't dread assembly because it is "old". People dread it because you can blow your foot of without realizing it, but it is still necessary today. Specifics matter. "Old" doesn't cause it to be "bad". Foot guns and and lack of easily reproducible environments (I'm looking at you R) are "bad".