Zack Weinberg1d ago
Flipping through the esolang wiki <https://esolangs.org/wiki/Main_Page> and coming to the frustrating realization that there still isn't a worthy successor to INTERCAL.
Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago

The modern day esolangs are, it seems, motivated by one of three things:

* "How different can we make this from a conventional programming language and have it still be Turing complete?"
* "Wouldn't it be annoying if [thing that conventional programming languages never do]?"
* "Let's optimize for terseness at the expense of readability" (aka "golfing" languages).

INTERCAL *has* bizarre, annoying, and/or terse features but it's not *motivated* by any of them. INTERCAL's motivation is *satire.*

Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago
Specifically, INTERCAL is satirizing the common "third generation" programming languages of its time (the early 1970s). The things about INTERCAL that (on purpose) make it incredibly unpleasant to use are funhouse mirrors of the things about FORTRAN, BASIC, COBOL, the other somethingBOL languages, MUMPS, etc. that made *them* unpleasant to use (because their designers didn't know any better at the time).
Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago
It's not just a parody, either, because it has a point to make -- several points, in fact. The most obvious is the numbered variables (skewering languages where all variables had to be one letter) but there's also a whole chunk of the manual about how "a person whose work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem", and a throughline about what we'd call "familiarity" today (all the made-up custom names for symbols)...
Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago
A true successor to INTERCAL, then, would also need to be a satire. Where's the programming language whose intentional annoyances demonstrate the unintentional annoyances of writing code in *today's* popular programming languages?
Show threadpancomputans
@zwol Obviously you are talking about C++. Stroustrup just hasn’t revealed it’s satirical.
Mar 30 at 5:07pmWeb
Show threadZack Weinberg1d ago
@pancomputans I dunno. Possibly this is just Poe's Law of Satire at work, but C++ has always felt like it's in earnest to me. Kinda like how, as Teresa Nielsen Hayden once quipped, only someone with a truly _clean_ mind could have invented candle salad.