5 ms·

One Letter Programming Languages

71 points by azhenley 6y ago

Sniffnoy 6y ago
There's a fair bit missing from this; e.g. MUMPS is also known as M, and I believe there's another one known as M as well that isn't here?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  The language used by PowerQuery is called M.
klyrs 6y ago
> Conclusions > If you are looking for a free name, there is none. However, you can probably overwrite H, I, T, V, or W. Or, y'know, there's all that unicode...
- azhenley 6y ago
  Can I go ahead and reserve the U+1F60E programming language?
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    I'm gonna take � while it's still available.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    The website author suggests that V is still available since the language is in alpha. In that case, no, you'd better get on writing that interpreter / compiler if you don't want to get scooped.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    We probably should start an IANA registry... Meanwhile, I call dibs on "🃏" and the ".🃏" file extension, for obvious reasons.
- Semiapies 6y ago
  Plan 9 had alef, after all.
m463 6y ago
And then there's the languages named after people, like Ada, Julia or Turbo
- 8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
  What is turbo and who is it named after? I know it's a name but I don't know of anyone with that name who is notable other than like one unpopular saint.
  - m463 6y ago
    I was attempting a "turbo pascal" joke
    - Joker_vD 6y ago
      Ah, right, the less famous brother of Blaise Pascal.
      - samatman 6y ago
        Nah, it was his nickname, Blaise "Turbo" Pascal, because he was blaising fast.
        yongjik 6y ago
        Fun fact: Google's original build system was written in Turbo Pascal, though they had to tweak the name due to copyrights or something. A competing system, Judge "Haskell" Alsup, was unfortunately shot down by lawyers.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    There was a Roman general called Quintus Marcius Turbo. https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-3957 https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/97801993...
- madcaptenor 6y ago
Y_Y 6y ago
All the letters are taken, but what about the numbers? I'll claim "2" if it's not taken. I can't wait to tell everyone to check out my new language. Based on a quick look it seems like you can't get domains that are just one number though (like 2.com), is this really the case? (It's just the binary lambda calculus, but you can use the character '2' as a goto.)
- axaxs 6y ago
  For .com, yes. All the single character .com domains that weren't in use(I think?) were moved to reserved long ago.
tom_mellior 6y ago
If you allow the Z specification language, you could also add its relative B: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method The claim that G-code is also referred to as the G programming language surprised me. But what do I know.
- improv32 6y ago
  I worked in a CNC shop for 6 years and never once heard "G programming language"
argvargc 6y ago
At first, I thought this meant languages where the programming symbols were limited in size to a single letter. I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved. Edit: and then I got to "O".
- anyfoo 6y ago
  You should also look at the second entry for H, then. It's a "language" that pretty much only accepts "h" or "'" as its input.
  - argvargc 6y ago
    h
not2b 6y ago
The author asks why you would choose a programming language that is impossible to Google, but that's not quite correct: Google has no problem with "D language" or "J language".
- madcaptenor 6y ago
  How often do you just Google the name of a programming language, anyway? And you'd have the same problem if your language were named after a common word like Python or Java. From about 2003 to 2012 or so I used LaTeX pretty frequently for typesetting and remember occasionally coming across some results that were about a different kind of latex. This doesn't seem to happen any more, from a quick test. But Google knows from my search history that I'm interested in math; a new user might have problems.
- Macha 6y ago
  The fact that people refer to google's own Go as golang relatively frequently indicates to me that googleable names are important. These days when I use a language in a query it's usually in combination with something. I might not google go, but I might google go time... which my test run indicates has an entirely different problem than what I expected, the results are go related - there is a go related podcast called GoTime, funnily enough. But I've definitely needed to disambiguate programming technologies from entirely different contexts in some queries.
gumby 6y ago
These are actually "Programming languages with names that contain a single alphabetic character". C*, for programming the Connection Machine, is therefore a notable omission.
lordgrenville 6y ago
Cool article. I wish PL names were more imaginative in general: a single letter is so uninspiring. Naming after famous people (Pascal, Haskell, Ada, Erlang) isn't a bad idea. Failing that there are so many mythological or natural terms that would make good names. (I love how Docker and Kubernetes describe low-tech analogies, though I guess with languages they are harder to find.)
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The D programming language was originally named Mars (after my company name Digital Mars). But my friends and colleagues kept jokingly calling it "D" to the point where reality was accepted. The D standard library is still called Phobos.
  - lordgrenville 6y ago
    Fair enough! Mars would have been great though.
self_buddliea 6y ago
If you've run out of letters in the alphabet, you have diacritical marks at your disposal.
WalterBright 6y ago
I remember when Zilog tried to trademark the letter Z, and Intel tried to trademark 386. That didn't work.
cozzyd 6y ago
a lot of greek letters seem to have languages as well (at least, alpha, beta, gamma do...I stopped checking after that).
_kst_ 6y ago
How about a language named "."? The source code for the "hello, world" program would be in a file called "hello..". Or Ctrl-G (BEL). Just doing a directory listing would make your terminal beep. Or LF if you really want to mess up your directory listings. Or NUL if you just want to make it impossible to create a correctly named source file (unless you consider "hello." to be equivalent to "hello.\0").
- akiselev 6y ago
  >* (unless you consider "hello." to be equivalent to "hello.\0").* Even better, some software will consider that valid and other won't, depending on which string handling functions they use to build up the path
  - _kst_ 6y ago
    On Unix-like systems, you can't use '\0' in a path name. I think that's also the case on Windows. Nor can you use '/', so trying to use that as a file extension would be almost equally silly.
- boothby 6y ago
  The language, where a machine starts with a list of symbols +.<>],[!- and accepts two instructions p and q which apply the permutations (+-)(,.)([])(<>) or (!.<[+>],-) respectively and executes the brainfuck instruction given by the second symbol whenever the first symbol is !, doesn't even have a name.
zeckalpha 6y ago
I’m just surprised there’s no The programming language.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  But there is a A Programming Language[0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
(2016) Here's some related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11652160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11652160
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  (2020) for this one, similar titles but different authors.

71 points by azhenley 6y ago

There's a fair bit missing from this; e.g. MUMPS is also known as M, and I believe there's another one known as M as well that isn't here?

dragonwriter 6y ago
The language used by PowerQuery is called M.

klyrs 6y ago

> Conclusions > If you are looking for a free name, there is none. However, you can probably overwrite H, I, T, V, or W. Or, y'know, there's all that unicode...

azhenley 6y ago
Can I go ahead and reserve the U+1F60E programming language?
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  I'm gonna take � while it's still available.
- klyrs 6y ago
  The website author suggests that V is still available since the language is in alpha. In that case, no, you'd better get on writing that interpreter / compiler if you don't want to get scooped.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  We probably should start an IANA registry... Meanwhile, I call dibs on "🃏" and the ".🃏" file extension, for obvious reasons.
Semiapies 6y ago
Plan 9 had alef, after all.

m463 6y ago

And then there's the languages named after people, like Ada, Julia or Turbo

8fGTBjZxBcHq 6y ago
What is turbo and who is it named after? I know it's a name but I don't know of anyone with that name who is notable other than like one unpopular saint.
- m463 6y ago
  I was attempting a "turbo pascal" joke
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    Ah, right, the less famous brother of Blaise Pascal.
    - samatman 6y ago
      Nah, it was his nickname, Blaise "Turbo" Pascal, because he was blaising fast.
      - yongjik 6y ago
        Fun fact: Google's original build system was written in Turbo Pascal, though they had to tweak the name due to copyrights or something. A competing system, Judge "Haskell" Alsup, was unfortunately shot down by lawyers.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  There was a Roman general called Quintus Marcius Turbo. https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-3957 https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/97801993...
madcaptenor 6y ago

Y_Y 6y ago

All the letters are taken, but what about the numbers? I'll claim "2" if it's not taken. I can't wait to tell everyone to check out my new language. Based on a quick look it seems like you can't get domains that are just one number though (like 2.com), is this really the case? (It's just the binary lambda calculus, but you can use the character '2' as a goto.)

axaxs 6y ago
For .com, yes. All the single character .com domains that weren't in use(I think?) were moved to reserved long ago.

tom_mellior 6y ago

If you allow the Z specification language, you could also add its relative B: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Method The claim that G-code is also referred to as the G programming language surprised me. But what do I know.

improv32 6y ago
I worked in a CNC shop for 6 years and never once heard "G programming language"

argvargc 6y ago

At first, I thought this meant languages where the programming symbols were limited in size to a single letter. I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved. Edit: and then I got to "O".

anyfoo 6y ago
You should also look at the second entry for H, then. It's a "language" that pretty much only accepts "h" or "'" as its input.
- argvargc 6y ago
  h

not2b 6y ago

The author asks why you would choose a programming language that is impossible to Google, but that's not quite correct: Google has no problem with "D language" or "J language".

madcaptenor 6y ago
How often do you just Google the name of a programming language, anyway? And you'd have the same problem if your language were named after a common word like Python or Java. From about 2003 to 2012 or so I used LaTeX pretty frequently for typesetting and remember occasionally coming across some results that were about a different kind of latex. This doesn't seem to happen any more, from a quick test. But Google knows from my search history that I'm interested in math; a new user might have problems.
Macha 6y ago
The fact that people refer to google's own Go as golang relatively frequently indicates to me that googleable names are important. These days when I use a language in a query it's usually in combination with something. I might not google go, but I might google go time... which my test run indicates has an entirely different problem than what I expected, the results are go related - there is a go related podcast called GoTime, funnily enough. But I've definitely needed to disambiguate programming technologies from entirely different contexts in some queries.

gumby 6y ago

These are actually "Programming languages with names that contain a single alphabetic character". C*, for programming the Connection Machine, is therefore a notable omission.

lordgrenville 6y ago

Cool article. I wish PL names were more imaginative in general: a single letter is so uninspiring. Naming after famous people (Pascal, Haskell, Ada, Erlang) isn't a bad idea. Failing that there are so many mythological or natural terms that would make good names. (I love how Docker and Kubernetes describe low-tech analogies, though I guess with languages they are harder to find.)

WalterBright 6y ago
The D programming language was originally named Mars (after my company name Digital Mars). But my friends and colleagues kept jokingly calling it "D" to the point where reality was accepted. The D standard library is still called Phobos.
- lordgrenville 6y ago
  Fair enough! Mars would have been great though.

self_buddliea 6y ago

If you've run out of letters in the alphabet, you have diacritical marks at your disposal.

WalterBright 6y ago

I remember when Zilog tried to trademark the letter Z, and Intel tried to trademark 386. That didn't work.

cozzyd 6y ago

a lot of greek letters seem to have languages as well (at least, alpha, beta, gamma do...I stopped checking after that).

_kst_ 6y ago

How about a language named "."? The source code for the "hello, world" program would be in a file called "hello..". Or Ctrl-G (BEL). Just doing a directory listing would make your terminal beep. Or LF if you really want to mess up your directory listings. Or NUL if you just want to make it impossible to create a correctly named source file (unless you consider "hello." to be equivalent to "hello.\0").

akiselev 6y ago
>* (unless you consider "hello." to be equivalent to "hello.\0").* Even better, some software will consider that valid and other won't, depending on which string handling functions they use to build up the path
- _kst_ 6y ago
  On Unix-like systems, you can't use '\0' in a path name. I think that's also the case on Windows. Nor can you use '/', so trying to use that as a file extension would be almost equally silly.
boothby 6y ago
The language, where a machine starts with a list of symbols +.<>],[!- and accepts two instructions p and q which apply the permutations (+-)(,.)([])(<>) or (!.<[+>],-) respectively and executes the brainfuck instruction given by the second symbol whenever the first symbol is !, doesn't even have a name.

zeckalpha 6y ago

I’m just surprised there’s no The programming language.

a1369209993 6y ago
But there is a A Programming Language[0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

(2016) Here's some related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11652160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11652160

Jtsummers 6y ago
(2020) for this one, similar titles but different authors.