Have you ever wondered about the origins of programming languages? When it comes to unusual programming languages, it’s more a matter of personal preference. Some authors of weirdest programming languages require additional tools to validate their ideas, while others just wish to show their creativity.
Weirdest programming languages emerge when programmers challenge language design standards, and the majority of them are difficult to use. Quite the contrary; attempt writing Chicken twenty times. To summarise, strange programming languages are languages that are used to test a programmer’s abilities. The weirdest programming languages will drive you insane, but you will enjoy them. The majority of them began as a joke. Let us begin!
LOLCODE
As you can imagine, this language is composed entirely of lolspeak, the so-called “language” of lolcats. Each phrase is capitalized and meme-fied, making it virtually impossible to picture a cat using it! Adam Lindsay, a researcher at Lancaster University’s Computing Department, created LOLCODE in 2007. Although you will be unable to use LOLCODE for anything other than reading files and writing text to the terminal, the language’s humor and charm compensate for its shortcomings.
TrumpScript
It began as a joke that this is the programming language Trump would endorse – just as he is restoring America’s greatness, owners believe that this language will restore programming’s greatness. Although construction on this project has ceased, the owners wish to convey a powerful statement. They believe that this joke is no longer amusing and wish to persuade people to actually do something about the world’s grave issues. For instance, you might give to charity rather than debating the merits of the “Trump is silly” meme.
Brainfuck
Brainfuck is the living legend of obscure languages, with a nearly cult-like following. With only eight basic instructions and an instruction pointer, it is famously difficult to programme in. It was created to test and entertain programmers and was not intended for practical usage. Urban Müller founded it in 1993.
Whitespace
Edwin Brady and Chris Morris invented Whitespace as an April Fools’ prank. Whereas the majority of programming languages disregard whitespace characters. Whitespace treats them as instructions and ignores all other characters. As a result, whitespace code can be write within computer languages that do not support it.
Chef
Similar to Shakespeare, David Morgan-Chef Mar’s is a programming language that does not appear to be one, but rather resembles a food recipe. Not only should the code provide correct output, but it should also produce simple-to-prepare recipes that appeal to cooks of all budgets. Metric measurements must be use in the recipes. In other words, the recipes must function as code AND be capable of being cooked and consumed.
Piet
Piet is another esoteric programming language invented by David Morgan-Mar. It is named after Piet Mondrian. A pointer is use to build the programmer; it moves around the picture, from one part to the next. The code is in the colour; the compiler reads the colours and converts them to a programme.
Chicken
As bizarre as this may sound, it is true – this language permits just one planet, and this world is referred to as “chicken”! Torbjörn Söderstedt, a Swedish programmer and developer of this language, was inspired to create Chicken by hearing Doug Zongker’s spoof of scientific presentations.
Befunge
Similar to Brainf*ck, Chris Pressey created Befunge in 1993 with the goal of designing a language that was as difficult to compile as possible. He does this by the use of self-modifying code and the execution of the same instruction in four distinct ways, not to mention the instruction set itself.
Velato
Velato is a programming language designed by Daniel Temkin that is based on MIDI files. The commands are defined by the pitch and sequence of the notes, and the source code generated by Velato has a jazzy tone.
Ook!
Ook! is a derivation of Brainf*ck and was created by David Morgan-Mar, a serial esoteric language creator. The structure is identical, save for the substitution of “Ook.”, “Ook?”, and “Ook!” for the eight instructions. The goal was to build a computer language that was “writable and readable by orangutans.”
Conclusion
Esoteric languages, such as those featured in this collection, allow for the formulation and validation of novel concepts. Occasionally, these concepts have a ripple effect throughout an industry. However, they are frequently so impractical that they stay specialized and obscure. You were just introduced to ten of them, but there are hundreds more.