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What is the most esoteric programming language under the programming languages that were not intended to be esoteric? The first language that comes to my mind i

What is the most esoteric programming language under the programming languages that were not intended to be esoteric? The first language that comes to my mind is APL. Any body having a better suggestion?

ScottBurson 5y ago
Hard to pick a winner, since the most esoteric languages will be those that were only ever used by their creators, and there are many of those :-) But listing candidates is fun anyway. Here are a few: SNOBOL, an early string-based pattern-matching language K, a database query/programming language PROSE, a dynamic systems modeling language from the 1970s that introduced automatic differentiation Among languages most people would have heard of, though, my vote for the most esoteric goes to Prolog.
sreekotay 5y ago
CMake
matheusmoreira 5y ago
GNU Make. It's actually a metaprogrammable functional programming language. It's possible to do a ridiculous amount of stuff in it. For example, I managed to write a pure GNU Make implementation of the find command. I tried to implement a small version autoconf as well but stopped because I could no longer understand what was going on.
siraben 5y ago
C++ template metaprogramming is a purely functional language embedded in C++, which lets you do crazy things like embed λ-calculus[0] in it. [0] https://matt.might.net/articles/c++-template-meta-programming-with-lambda-calculus/ https://matt.might.net/articles/c++-template-meta-programmin...
chriswarbo 5y ago
MUMPS springs to mind: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS
capableweb 5y ago
All the C-like languages (probably Rust is the best modern example). Filled with random characters that means bunch of different stuff, instead of just having a lisp-like structure where most things are just normal function calls. Making conditions a separate syntax instead of just a function will never make sense to me.
klyrs 5y ago
I'd say Perl is the most esoteric, widely used language. Folks have gotten more verbose with it over the years, but I've encountered line noise in a professional context in perl more than any other.
kazinator 5y ago
Some arcane things not intended to be eso: sendmail.cf configuration file. text munging languages from the Unix environment, like ed and sed. text munging languages from elsewhere like Teco. nroff/troff. Interactive Vi/Vim commands look like an esolang when you record them into a register and confront what that looks like.
- fjfaase 5y ago
  Teco: reminds me of the macro to calculate PI by Stanley Rabonowitz http://stanleyrabinowitz.com/ http://stanleyrabinowitz.com/

ScottBurson 5y ago

Hard to pick a winner, since the most esoteric languages will be those that were only ever used by their creators, and there are many of those :-) But listing candidates is fun anyway. Here are a few: SNOBOL, an early string-based pattern-matching language K, a database query/programming language PROSE, a dynamic systems modeling language from the 1970s that introduced automatic differentiation Among languages most people would have heard of, though, my vote for the most esoteric goes to Prolog.

sreekotay 5y ago

CMake

matheusmoreira 5y ago

GNU Make. It's actually a metaprogrammable functional programming language. It's possible to do a ridiculous amount of stuff in it. For example, I managed to write a pure GNU Make implementation of the find command. I tried to implement a small version autoconf as well but stopped because I could no longer understand what was going on.

siraben 5y ago

C++ template metaprogramming is a purely functional language embedded in C++, which lets you do crazy things like embed λ-calculus[0] in it. [0] https://matt.might.net/articles/c++-template-meta-programming-with-lambda-calculus/ https://matt.might.net/articles/c++-template-meta-programmin...

chriswarbo 5y ago

MUMPS springs to mind: https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS

capableweb 5y ago

All the C-like languages (probably Rust is the best modern example). Filled with random characters that means bunch of different stuff, instead of just having a lisp-like structure where most things are just normal function calls. Making conditions a separate syntax instead of just a function will never make sense to me.

klyrs 5y ago

I'd say Perl is the most esoteric, widely used language. Folks have gotten more verbose with it over the years, but I've encountered line noise in a professional context in perl more than any other.

kazinator 5y ago

Some arcane things not intended to be eso: sendmail.cf configuration file. text munging languages from the Unix environment, like ed and sed. text munging languages from elsewhere like Teco. nroff/troff. Interactive Vi/Vim commands look like an esolang when you record them into a register and confront what that looks like.

fjfaase 5y ago
Teco: reminds me of the macro to calculate PI by Stanley Rabonowitz http://stanleyrabinowitz.com/ http://stanleyrabinowitz.com/