I think it was that back when it was relevant (but replace data scientists with web devs)

Sure, but if programs from that era are still around, chances are the maintainer is quite experienced by now and has fixed all the funky behaviour. 🙃

I never got interested in the ecosystem myself, but I’ve run into it every now and then. I feel like it’s in the same place as PHP today: still used a lot for legacy reasons, but you’ll get weird looks if you start a new project with it and you’re under the age of 40

Ten years ago, a university buddy of mine discovered Ruby and you might've thought a miracle happened from how excited he was for it. But yeah, that was also the last time I met someone in real life who was excited about Ruby. 😅