Comment by dapperdrake

Depends on your use-cases.

Perl went through a few backwards-incompatible changes and Raku (née Perl 6) and has eroded its library base and user base.

Kind if like the transition from Python 2 to Python 3 stranded part of the ecosystem.

The backwards compatible systems like Linux user space ABI, Java (ruffled feathers with Java 9), TeX/LaTeX and Win32 will stick around the longest due to accreting libraries. Golang is on its way there. Python 3 may have enough important libraries now to also stick with them. If Zig does their job right, then they also have chances.

For Java look at NTS from Java 1.2 days in 2001, where apparently even the old jar files still load on new JVMs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40753417