Unless explicitly addressed rot rate is proportional to popularity. Unpopular targets, platforms, languages, etc don't get changed and provide a much needed re

Unless explicitly addressed rot rate is proportional to popularity. Unpopular targets, platforms, languages, etc don't get changed and provide a much needed refuge. There are some interpreted languages like perl where a program written today could run on a perl from 2001 and a program from 2001 would run on perl today. And I'm not talking about in a container or with some special version. I'm talking about the system perl. Some popular languages these days can lose forwards compatibility (gain features, etc) within just a few months that every dev will use within a few more months. In these cultures sofware rot is really fast.