Cyclops: a programming language written in undeciphered Greek runes | Hacker News Reader

Cyclops: a programming language written in undeciphered Greek runes

cyclopslang.org

69 pointsmapmeld34 comments

Wow. The Greeks did well to invent runes that hold six numbers in a tiny square box. I can't imagine the precision hammers and chisels they would need for that.

C'mon, I was eating when I read that and nearly choked.

Note that they're Arabic numerals, which suggests actual alien intervention...

thanks for making me think about that show. "According to Ancient Programmer theory..."

to nitpick, I believe those used in Linear A are not technically "runes", i.e. the runes are only the ones used in writing systems for german languages, and derived from old italic alphabets.

Could it have been popularized by golang's use of "rune" as a synonym of Unicode codepoint (which is inherited from Plan 9)?

Could golang be popular?

Kidding aside, I saw a go program (maybe Ken Thompson wrote it?) that assigned a variable to three smiley faces.

To be fair, I don't see the word "rune" anywhere on the linked page. I'm assuming it's an error created by the submitter.

I think it was in the text before, but it was changed.

If this is how things are going to go, I guess I should break out the APL keyboard and get going.

This? http://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_rc...

Looks like they didn't have the right unicode font for L

Quad and squad. The joys of a character-set derived by the character overstriking your original development teletype could produce.

This requires a lot more typing than APL. OTOH, code seems less write-only.

I don't know about write-only. I've sat behind some APLers and they seem to know exactly what's going on. To me it would be write only much like if you made me write a letter in Spanish. I would be looking stuff up and probably forget what about it a couple months later.

I wrote a lot of APL code for one semester. Trust me: mine was write-only to a point I wouldn't be able to figure out in the afternoon the code I wrote in the morning...

In time, it's possible to become fluent and recognize the idioms and larger patterns that form the language, but it seems to be a painful process.

Until someone makes a to javascript transpiler for it, I'm just not interested. :)

This seems like the next logical step, really.

I can't see it really taking off until it has at least half a dozen web frameworks and a decent befunge binding layer.

This one needs an appropriate virtual keyboard. Or better physical too. With stone keys.

I really like the equality symbol! I guess it's nice when the symbols have symbolism.

So. A bit of semiotics by C.S. Peirce.

Peirce reckoned that there are three basic signs: icons, indices (indexes?), and symbols. An icon looks like the thing it is representing. An index points to it (like your index finger does, this is called indexicality). A symbol stands in for and is unlike the thing it represents, like 4 for |||| things.

So because equality is represented with a scales you _should_ have said, "I guess it's nice when the signs have iconicity." :)

How does it compare to emojicode?

I hate to sound alarmist, but I'm seriously worried that we're reaching "peak novelty programming language". If we don't start exploring alternative uses of free time now, we're going to be in serious trouble soon.

Seriously ... it is stuff like this that makes me not want to check HN much these days.

hey I understand the sentiment. But I work on "serious" tech all week and show that to my boss or my client. If I have a joke project like this or "gitjk" then I show it to HN, and people seem to like and remember them more than any of the "serious" work that I've done

Well said. This post is like a breath of fresh air, because it doesn't pretend to be useful like those speculative business ideas or new JS frameworks.

Please don't. I'm sure you won't be missed.

Toy languages are fun, and nothing new. Making your own language is a great exercise.

No one complains when someone shows up with a new toy Lisp or transpiler language, but implement a language using unusual Unicode codepoints and all of a sudden monkeys are swinging from the chandeliers.

And yet even a toy language is a more productive use of someone's time than the fruitless political commentary around here.

It bothers me more that they all tend to be reskins of conventional imperative languages. It’s fun when it’s a joke, but a lot of non-joke languages are built the same way. We don’t need new syntax for the same semantics—we need new semantics.

It's closer to a functional language though--there's a break statement but no return statement

They should re-do it in the Urbit language/thing

I thought we hit it back during LOLCODE.

It's stupid

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