The Proliferation of Programming Languages: Explained
In a blog post for Communications of the ACM, Doug Meil reflects on the abundance of programming languages and the failed ambition of PL/I to be the ultimate language. PL/I's high price compared to its competitors, including PL/M, hindered its adoption. The question of why there are so many programming languages has been asked since the early 1960s, with factors like market dynamics and consumer preferences playing a role in language popularity.
