Is This Tech Dead?
Is This Tech Dead?
Apr 19, 2025Live

Our Methodology(or How We Perform Digital Autopsies)

At "Is This Tech Dead?", we've developed a sophisticated system to calculate exactly how screwed you are for choosing that technology stack. Our Deaditude Score™ is like a health inspector for tech showing up unannounced, poking around in dark corners, and leaving with a clipboard full of horrifying facts you'd rather not know.

WARNING: If you're emotionally attached to a technology, this page may cause existential dread, spontaneous job searching, or the sudden urge to delete your Stack Overflow account and become a goat farmer.

Deaditude Score™ Calculation (Or: Quantifying Your Poor Life Choices)

Our Deaditude Score ranges from 0 (thriving like venture capital at a buzzword convention) to 100 (so dead it makes COBOL look cutting-edge). We combine metrics from across the internet into one soul-crushing number that accurately measures how much you should regret your technology decisions.

Data Sources & Weights (a.k.a. Our Blame Distribution)

  • GitHub Activity20%
  • Google Jobs(or lack thereof)20%
  • Reddit Complaints15%
  • StackShare Adoption15%
  • YouTube Desperation15%
  • Stack Overflow Panic10%
  • Hacker News Contempt5%

Score Interpretation (a.k.a. Your Career Forecast)

  • 0-20:Very Active — Silicon Valley is currently throwing money at it like a tech bro at a crypto nightclub.
  • 21-40:Active — Recruiters will still spam you on LinkedIn. You'll be employable for at least 2-3 more years.
  • 41-60:Stable — The "Java Zone" – boring but pays the bills. Mostly maintained by people who are too tired to learn something new.
  • 61-80:Declining — Only one guy in Belarus still has commit access and he hasn't been seen since 2018.
  • 81-100:Abandoned — This tech is deader than your Tamagotchi. Time to update that résumé, champ.

How We Analyze Each Source (With Brutal Precision)

GitHub Analysis(Digital Archaeology)

We dig through GitHub repositories like digital archaeologists searching for signs of life:

  • We count commits to see if anyone still cares (spoiler: they probably don't)
  • We measure how long issues stay open (some repos have bugs old enough to vote)
  • We analyze PRs to see if maintainers are still alive or just propped up Weekend-at-Bernie's style
  • We count active contributors (one maintainer = imminent death)
  • We track star counts (the "thoughts and prayers" of open source)
  • We check release dates (if the last tag was when Gangnam Style was trending, it's not looking good)

Google Jobs(Economic Distress Signals)

We analyze job listings to see if anyone is still hiring for this tech:

  • Number of job listings (fewer than Blockbuster store openings? Not a good sign)
  • Search result relevance (when "expert in X" returns jobs for "anything but X")
  • Requirement patterns (when it only appears in "legacy system maintenance" sections)

Reddit Activity(Digital Eulogy Department)

We scour Reddit for the vibe check:

  • Post volume (when "is X dead yet?" posts outnumber tutorials, it's terminal)
  • Subreddit subscriber counts (fewer members than a MySpace fan club? Bad news)
  • Post sentiment analysis (measuring the ratio of excitement to existential dread)

StackShare Adoption(Corporate FOMO Tracker)

We check who's actually using this technology in production:

  • Number of companies reporting usage (fewer than people who've finished a CAPTCHA on the first try? Concerning)
  • Notable companies listed (when even the example companies are startups that went bankrupt in 2017)

YouTube Tutorials(Digital Lifeboat Analysis)

We track the last gasps of tutorial content:

  • Video freshness (all tutorials recorded on potato cameras from 2009? Get your resume ready)
  • View counts (fewer than "How to install Windows Vista" videos? Time to panic)
  • Video-to-complaint ratio (when "why X sucks" videos outnumber actual tutorials)

Stack Overflow(Desperation Metrics)

We measure the collective panic of developers:

  • Question frequency (when "how to migrate away from X" questions outnumber actual usage questions...)
  • Answer rates (unanswered questions older than most junior developers is not a good sign)
  • Tag popularity trends (less popular than <blink> tag questions? Time to learn something new)

Hacker News(Tech Hipster Sentiment)

We analyze what the insufferable tech elites are saying:

  • Mention frequency (fewer mentions than Betamax or HD-DVD restoration projects? Not great)
  • Comment sentiment (when the most positive comment is "well, it's still better than PHP")
  • Discussion topics (the ratio of obituaries to actual technical discussions)

Data Refresh Schedule (Keeping the Death Certificate Updated)

Our algorithms grind away daily, dispassionately charting the decline of your favorite technologies like the world's most depressing heart monitor. We apply sophisticated statistical smoothing—not to make things look better, but to ensure the flatline is scientifically accurate.

A Note From Our Legal Department

Please be advised that using Deaditude Score™ as your only basis for tech stack decisions is like choosing a spouse based exclusively on their Zodiac sign. We take no responsibility for your career after you decide to learn FORTRAN because "it seems due for a comeback."

Remember: A high Deaditude Score doesn't necessarily mean you should avoid a technology. Sometimes the most stable tech is just unfashionably reliable—like those Volvo station wagons from the 90s. They'll still run when the nuclear winter comes, but don't expect anyone to be impressed at car meetups.