I think in terms of niches and fitness Programming languages are under a Darwinism-like pressure of programmer's attention. They have to fit a niche, and the o

I think in terms of niches and fitness Programming languages are under a Darwinism-like pressure of programmer's attention. They have to fit a niche, and the ones that fit the niche best, survive. What another commentator calls killed features is, to me, a way to fit a niche. Sometimes that niche is fun, like Python. Javascript's niche is that it's literally the only option. I suspect some languages (Java) fill a niche because they've been there for so long there's no oxygen for anything else to have a chance.