Esoteric programming language

Esoteric programming languages are those programming languages which are designed as a proof of concept, or as jokes, and not with the intention of being adopted for real-world programming. Consequently, usability is rarely a high priority for such languages. The usual aim is to remove or replace conventional language features while still maintaining a language that is Turing-complete.

The earliest esoteric language was Intercal, designed in 1972 with the stated aim of being as fundamentally unlike any existing language as possible. Other noteworthy esoteric languages are:

• Brainfuck, a Turing tarpit consisting of only eight instructions
• Unlambda, an even more minimal language based on the functional programming paradigm
• Befunge, in which programs are arranged on a two-dimensional grid
• Malbolge, designed to be the hardest programming language ever invented.

A related pursuit among programming language enthusiasts is the writing of obfuscated code.

External links:

• The Encyclopedia of Esoteric Programming (http://www.kraml.at/stupid/languages)
• Esoteric programmers and language designers meet on the Esoteric Languages Mailing List (http://www.catseye.mb.ca/list), or on the channel #esoteric on the Freenode IRC network (irc.freenode.net)