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Cyclops: a programming language written in undeciphered Greek runes
- ommunist 11y agoThis one needs an appropriate virtual keyboard. Or better physical too. With stone keys.
- J_Darnley 11y agoWow. 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.
- jcadam 11y agoC'mon, I was eating when I read that and nearly choked.
- roywiggins 11y agoNote that they're Arabic numerals, which suggests actual alien intervention...
- cwilkes 11y agothanks for making me think about that show. "According to Ancient Programmer theory..."
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoThis seems like the next logical step, really.
- Toenex 11y agoI can't see it really taking off until it has at least half a dozen web frameworks and a decent befunge binding layer.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- riebschlager 11y agoI 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.
- stuxnet79 11y agoSeriously ... it is stuff like this that makes me not want to check HN much these days.
- mapmeld 11y agohey 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
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoWell 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.
- njharman 11y agoPlease don't. I'm sure you won't be missed.
- dgabriel 11y agoToy languages are fun, and nothing new. Making your own language is a great exercise.
- krapp 11y agoNo 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.
- riffraff 11y agoto 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.
- xiaq 11y agoCould it have been popularized by golang's use of "rune" as a synonym of Unicode codepoint (which is inherited from Plan 9)?
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoCould golang be popular? Kidding aside, I saw a go program (maybe Ken Thompson wrote it?) that assigned a variable to three smiley faces.
- bmm6o 11y agoTo 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.
- riffraff 11y agoI think it was in the text before, but it was changed.
- protomyth 11y agoIf this is how things are going to go, I guess I should break out the APL keyboard and get going.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoThis? http://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_rc.jpg http://www.dyalog.com/uploads/images/Business/products/us_rc... Looks like they didn't have the right unicode font for L
- llasram 11y agoQuad and squad. The joys of a character-set derived by the character overstriking your original development teletype could produce.
- rbanffy 11y agoThis requires a lot more typing than APL. OTOH, code seems less write-only.
- protomyth 11y agoI 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.
- rbanffy 11y agoI 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.
- sbonilla 11y agoIt's stupid
- luckystarr 11y agoI really like the equality symbol! I guess it's nice when the symbols have symbolism.
- igravious 11y agoSo. 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." :)
- njharman 11y agoUntil someone makes a to javascript transpiler for it, I'm just not interested. :)
- roywiggins 11y agoHow does it compare to emojicode?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]