Esoteric programming languages ​​are fun – until they kill a joke

Some programming languages It helped send people to the moon, some cook modern leukemia drugs, and some exist only to fuck you. Brainfuck is a minimalist language “esoteric”, “Esolang”, consisting of only eight non -alphabetical characters. Esolangs are experimental, joke and intentionally complex to apply languages ​​created to emphasize the boundaries of the code (and buttons). At Brainfuck, part of the basic program “Hello, World” It appears . <- <. +++.

Most Esolangs do not look like a computer code at all. Here is one of the ways of printing “HI” in Shakespeare’s programming language:

The whole program in the world SA.

Hamlet, melancholic prince.
Ophelia, Machine’s voice.

Act: 1.
Scene: 1.

[Enter Hamlet and Ophelia]

Ophelia: You are as sweet as the sum of stunning, candid, brave, tranquil, noble master and a cheerful, golden king. Tell your mind!

Hamlet: You are as stunning as the sum of the flowering stunning, charming, nice, bright summer day and delicious sweet, delicious rose. You are as stunning as the sum and the flower. Tell your mind!

[Exeunt]

Basically, Hamlet and Ophelia are “Variles”, to which numerical values ​​are assigned. “Lord” and “neck” nouns have a value of +1, and adjectives such as “vocabulary” and “for Hamlet and” for multipliers. “Pay your mind!” Will print them.

Esolangs can become even more unwavering. On Esolang WikiYou will find a list of at least 6000 these languages ​​screwdriver and counting. As Koreans, I am amused!, Esolang, which requires writing programs in Korea. Then there is a white, unseen language consisting of such things as spaces and bookmarks. If you fancy more color, there is a Piet (like in Mondrian), whose “code” consists of 20 colors arranged on the net, producing Programs that look like abstract images. Some Esolang is even “complementing”, which means that theoretically they can do everything that can be more responsible languages, such as C ++ or Python (like theoretically, apply a letter opener instead of a sushi knife to prepare a 12-course omakaza).

But to sum up, you start to wonder what they are good for, for which they are good. Playing with them is at the same time entertaining and annoying, flooded, because you have countless clones, diminutive varieties of rules on existing languages ​​(such as white fate, but with parentheses), and languages ​​created only for profane hell. In her book Trick theorySianne NGAI literary critic says that tricks – all from Duchamp Fountain For Google Glass “they are” working too little, but they also work too difficult. “They put on a minimal effort, but begging to be noticed. To sum up, tricks can be a “fraudster” that skip the hard work needed to create something with a real substance.

So: Are Esolangs tricks?

We have the programmers I have always been sick, so it is not surprising that Esolangs appeared at the beginning of our history. In 1972, two Princeton students, Donald Woods and James Lyon, created the compiler’s language without a pronounced acronym or intercou to (naturally). It remains one of the most developed ESO-LANGs, with a 20-page Reference handbook“Parody of IBM documentation” – combined with comedy and sadism. Interkal complains if it does not contain a sufficient number of speeches of the keyword, but also rejects programs if you apply this word too much. You will finish the program with surrender.