Programming language adoption happens one developer at a time. If the silly TIOBE index is one's preferred benchmark, it's worth noting that every single language in the top 50 has been around for decades (with the exception of Go and F#, which have generous and powerful corporate sponsors).
Is there an hourglass somewhere?
In any case, nothing's even close to "over" or "dead at the starting gate". If that were the case, you wouldn't have messages like this: http://groups.google.com/group/clojure/msg/661747c952310b41
Programming language adoption happens one developer at a time. If the silly TIOBE index is one's preferred benchmark, it's worth noting that every single language in the top 50 has been around for decades (with the exception of Go and F#, which have generous and powerful corporate sponsors).