Esoteric Programming Languages: Art, Absurdity, and Computational Exploration

Deep Dive

The discussion begins with a brief mention of Text Control, a library for document editing and PDF generation, highlighting its commitment to building and supporting a strong developer community through user engagement and knowledge sharing at conferences.

The conversation then shifts to Daniel Temkin and his book, "44 Esolangs," described as a monograph of esoteric programming languages and a love letter to "weird coding languages." Temkin explains that the book is intentionally written with language accessible to both programmers and those in the art world, using terms like "monograph" to signal its nature as an art book and referencing conceptual artists to bridge the gap for an artistic audience. He aims to show that esolangs offer more than just puzzle or joke languages, emphasizing their potential for deeper aesthetic exploration, citing "Pete" as an example where programmers can develop their own visual style within the code.

Temkin discusses the nature of the esoteric programming language community, noting that while many programmers are familiar with a few esolangs and some high school or college students create them for learning purposes, the community of regular producers is smaller. He shares his personal motivation for starting his blog, "Esoteric Codes," around 2007-2008, which was to move beyond the highly technical and often confounding documentation of languages like Brainfuck. His blog aims to explore the ideas behind these languages, their influences, and the concepts they explore, interviewing digital poets and artists whose work intersects with esolangs to foster a broader conversation and encourage more creative work.

The conversation touches upon how some esolangs were initially introduced to programmers, such as Befunge in a compiler class in the 1990s, not as art, but as a way to explore the complexity and challenge of programming, sometimes in a "mean-spirited" way. This contrasts with the desire for more accessible and aesthetically pleasing languages, like those that might "look like QR codes" or be "fun."

Temkin explains that the languages discussed in the book often explore constraints and push the boundaries of programming language design. He uses the analogy of a program as a "performance score" for a computer, drawing parallels with conceptual art and Fluxus. He posits that programming languages define the lexicon, grammar, and abstract machine logic of code, and explores what happens when this is "unmoored" from practicality and physical machines.

The book includes languages that are theoretical and not fully implementable, either due to logical contradictions or because the prompt itself is considered sufficient. Temkin differentiates between the "concept" and the "idea" of a work, drawing from conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, where the "idea" fills in the details. He notes that the realization of these prompts can lead to unexpected but inevitable outcomes based on the initial definition.

A point of discussion arises regarding the term "prompt," as Temkin acknowledges its co-option by AI culture. He clarifies that the prompts in his book, many written before AI coding became prevalent, are "pitches" for languages, not instructions for a chatbot, and feeding them into current AI systems would likely yield only mediocre results, as AI tends to find statistical means rather than being truly creative.

The conversation delves into the cognitive aspect of coding and appreciating art, with Temkin describing how his hemispheres felt "fighting" when contemplating languages that challenged conventional programming. He highlights "12 Folders" as an example, a Turing-complete language inspired by "Whitespace" that uses empty folder structures to represent code. He explains its mechanics, where folder names and hierarchy dictate commands and expressions, and notes its original implementation in C# for Windows, where empty folders are treated as taking up zero bytes, leading to a peculiar form of "infinite storage" through folder names. He also speculates on the potential to "de-DOS" cloud services like OneDrive or Dropbox by synchronizing millions of empty folders.

Temkin describes how many esolangs emerge from the constraints of programming languages and pushing their edges. He introduces "Past Tense," a language where existing code is transformed by converting verbs to their past tense, rendering the program unrunnable and effectively placing it "in the past." He explains that if a compiler were created for "Past Tense," the programs would cease to be valid as they would be brought back into the present and made runnable, violating the language's core principle.

"Stroll," language 33 in the book, is presented as a favorite, inspired by spy movies and requiring human interaction in a physical space. Temkin explains that "Stroll" uses "red," "green," and "blue strollers" to represent code execution and data manipulation. The red stroller handles constants defined by street names, the green stroller points to memory blocks, and the blue stroller is critical, as its code is unique to each person and requires on-site interpretation of elements like tree species or street inclines, making the language "site-specific" and "ephemeral." He notes that lifting the program to a different location would yield different results, and changes in the environment could affect its execution.

The discussion then broadens to non-English programming languages. Temkin explains that languages are created in non-English tongues for educational purposes or to challenge English's dominance in coding. He mentions "Alb" or "Calb" by Ramsey Nasser, an Arabic Lisp that encountered biases in underlying technology when working with a right-to-left language and technical term translation issues. He also discusses "Yorlang," a Yoruba language created by a Nigerian programmer who wanted to code in his native tongue after a day of working in English, and "Cree Sharp," a multimedia storytelling language using Canadian Aboriginal syntax characters. Temkin is currently collaborating on a language with John Corbet that uses single, pronounceable characters with complex swoops and ascenders to represent lines of code, with the character's drawing style influencing its execution.

The question of whether esolangs could "graduate" to mainstream use is raised. Temkin suggests "Yorlang" as an example that could be used in mainstream code due to its clear performance from text, unlike languages intentionally designed to be obfuscated. He notes that while it wouldn't have the same support as languages like C#, it represents a potential starting point for broader adoption.

Finally, the conversation turns to the first identified esolang, "INTERCAL" (compiler language with no pronounceable acronym), created in 1972. Temkin describes INTERCAL as a parody that makes coding difficult, featuring a "please" operator that ignores programs if "please" is used too little or too much. He mentions interviewing Don Wood, who recently found the original INTERCAL compiler code. Temkin's language "Olympus" in the book was inspired by INTERCAL's personality-driven approach, featuring Greek gods who might ignore programs if displeased, requiring commensurate praise for requests. He notes that Zeus might ignore the program, while other gods continue, creating unpredictable execution flows. He relates this to the "demo gods" that can affect presentations. The book, "44 Esolangs," is available from MIT Press, and Temkin is on a speaking tour.