#esolang

[mantacid]

Just came up with a programming language lol.

It’s object oriented (I think. I’ve never done this before), and supports a lot of features that lisp has, including

I call it RunOn, because

The Syntax kinda looks like actual sentences, and

because the period character terminates the whole program.

Now you have Syntax that kinda reads like a run-on sentence:

*define the class DOG as being an instance of a MAMMAL with an attribute called fur_type*

ASSUME (A DOG) IS (A MAMMAL WITH (A SLOT NAMED fur_type INITIALLY “brown”);

*create an instance of a DOG named Fido.*

ASSUME fido IS (A DOG);

*Fido has Spotted fur now.*

SET (THE VALUE OF (THE SLOT OF fido NAMED fur_type)) TO “spotted”;

*pretty-print the object tied to the name fido to STDOUT (me).*

DESCRIBE (THE DOG NAMED fido) TO me.

* ——> “fido is a ‘dog’ with ‘spotted’ fur_type.”*

Also, each keyword (purple, blue, and green) takes only one argument, but expects a certain number of other keywords whose definitions change based on the context of the operators before it as well as the values given to those keywords. I did this for a couple of reasons:

Because it does a good enough job at forcing an English-like syntax,

It allows for methods specializing on all kinds of aspects of the data to be implemented, but more importantly

Because if I didn’t give myself that kind of restriction, I would’ve ended up having reinvented lisp for the third fucking time.

I have no idea how to make this thing a reality, so if someone out there knows how to make esolangs and wants to give this a shot, hit me up and I’ll send the documentation I have so far.

[quanyails]

the fact that the only way to communicate between cars is with a sudden, loud HONK is horrible language design 😤😤

like you're telling me the expressions for "please excuse me" and "SCREW YOU DRIVER FOR CUTTING ME OFF" use the exact same phoneme structure

[stkptr]

Oh ho ho it's esolang wiki time. Time to prove the computational class of another weird programming language! I wonder which model I'll emulate this time... Maybe it will be a Turing machine! Or perhaps even something like lambda calculus. Surely I won't use counter machines again!

Nevermind it was counter machines again.

[lily-of-the-code]

What's your favorite esoteric programming language? I've never used one, but I've done rese on them and there are some funny ones. For example, there's one where code is written like Shakespeare.

[esoteric-codes]

I have yet to find a residency brave enough to let me perform this language, by continually rearranging all of their stuff

[aeolids-zenith]

esolangs in Minecraft

I've been playing around with implementing esoteric programming languages as Minecraft data packs

for a bit I've had the idea of implementing BackFlip, a 2d language which is vaguely similar to the Langton's Ant cellular automaton and based on arrows and mirrors, the two of which conveniently resemble magenta and pink glazed terracotta

in figuring out how best to do output (I used tellraw with the "interpret" option for an NBT list, though I've since discovered this doesn't necessarily work for broader character sets than BackFlip's), I discovered that the new 1.19.4 "string" option for the /data command allows taking substrings; this (and the /data command in general) gave me the idea of implementing a more complex text-based language, which could be written in a book and quill

as a very basic proof-of-concept of text processing, I made an interpreter for the joke language Deadfish (which just has commands for incrementing, decrementing, squaring, and outputting a counter)

I was able to do it with a single function file, which made it convenient to add to the esolangs wiki page for Deadfish

finally, as a more complete example, I made an interpreter for the popular esolang brainfuck, with the program and input being read from books

unfortunately I used the same output method that I did for BackFlip, which it turns out doesn't work with the double-quote character, so I may have to make a fix sometime here..... (EDIT: it's now fixed -- somehow I had missed the very convenient option of selecting every item of the NBT list and setting the separator to empty string)

in any case though the data packs I've made so far can be found on GitHub

another esolang I've thought in the past about implementing in Minecraft is Piet, since it's pixel-based and that translates fairly well to Minecraft blocks; the main challenge is figuring out how to efficiently parse and represent the program, since NBT lists can't be indexed by variables and I might want to avoid creating an entity for every pixel? (though IDK maybe marker entities wouldn't be an issue for performance)

[admin-virus]

INTERCAL programmers trying to get their code through the compiler 

[bitwisest]

brief discussion on esolangs, ft. chef and piet

since i just started this blog, what better way to kick it off with a discussion on a niche computer science topic!

an esolang is an esoteric programming language, that is, a programming language designed for artistic purposes instead of technical/useful purposes. these languages are often not actually intended to be programmed in; to create working programs in esolangs may be very difficult or time consuming. however, esolangs serve their purpose in testing the boundaries of programming and its artistic qualities.

one example of an esolang is the chef programming language, where every program is formatted like a recipe, while completing a certain task. in fact, one of the key design principles of the chef language outlined by its creator David Morgan-Mar is for all of the ingredients and steps involved to be "easy to prepare and delicious" when considered as a recipe.

the program above, found on the chef creator's website, is a lovely (yet awfully complicated) recipe for caramel sauce that also just so happens to calculate the first 100 fibonacci numbers!

another esolang by David Morgan-Mar is the language Piet, where the programs are designed to appear similar to paintings by Piet Mondrian. the language is defined in terms of colour blocks, and interpreter programs of the language "move across" pixels of the program to perform actions. below is an example Piet program that prints "Piet"; it really does look like a painting!