The Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Coding | Hacker News Reader

The Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Coding

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

88 pointssohkamyung17 comments

Ok this part is prescient:

"The parody language INTERCAL was revived as C-INTERCAL, where one literally pleads with the interpreter to run their cryptic code."

Also, the code for the original INTERCAL-72 compiler was recently re-discovered: https://esoteric.codes/blog/published-for-the-first-time-the...

hmm, this sounds like a job for vibe coding!

"ChatGPT, write me an INTERCAL compiler in INTERCAL. Take your time."

Also linked in the article, https://esolangs.org is worth a read if this is up your alley

That wiki also comes with a funny CAPTCHA:

> Which number does this Befunge code output: 9731231181>\#+:#*9-#\_$.@

The FOC podcast folks released an episode on a paper (they didn't like) on esolangs just today. [0] Their episode on INTERCAL is an all-time classic.

I'm also excited for my copy of Temkin's book to arrive!

[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-take-esoteric-pro...

The FOC podcast is super fun and they end up discussing a few esolangs from the Forty-Four Esolangs book (Entropy, FatFinger). I'm also on a podcast about the book with Sam Arbseman (author of Magic of Code): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daniel-temkin-on-esote...

Hello sir! I found out about esoteric.codes from FOC a while ago, have read most of what's on there since. Honestly surprised Steve (or early days with Ivan) never had you as a guest / interviewee. So I'll definitely check this one out. Congrats on what looks like an amazing book, can't wait until I get to read it.

Thank you for bringing an underappreciated corner of computing to people's attention!

Thanks! It's so nice that esolangs are starting to get wider appreciation as a cultural form.

Reminds be of how people use typescript types like a hidden programming language making calculators etc.

Also: TypeScript types can run DOOM [video] (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43184291)

This completely reframes coding from a tool to a medium. It's less about computation and more about... encoded philosophy?

It seems the link to the minesweeper paper is broken, anyone know the title/has an alternate link?

My guess is Richard Kaye, "Minesweeper is NP-complete", but it's paywalled. Certainly the paper is listed somewhere on https://minesweepergame.com/math-papers.php