Please ELI5, I lost track. I used to learn a bit of C and a bit of Python a few years ago but never really went deeper into programming. And now suddenly it seems that a host of new programming languages have appeared and that stuff that used to work fine in whatever old language it was in is now rewritten in a new language.
How do languages like Golang and Rust differ from older languages (these two have probably been around a while but for me they feel ‘new’)? Why are we coming up with new languages all the time? Besides those two, what other languages are there worth knowing about? Is it worth learning them? Are they going to come up with yet another one next week? (I know, many questions, an invitation to infodump I guess …)


Trying to stop software engineers from inventing new programming languages is like trying to stop college students from having sex. You’re better off spending the effort on promoting safety¹ rather than abstinence.
¹ type-safety, memory-safety, etc.
Thanks to your comparison, I can now totally relate!
*am software engineer