5 ms·

What's this programming language?

24 points by nithinbekal 14y ago

carbocation 14y ago
Impressive that it doesn't just take the best guess; it also informs you of its alternative hypotheses: http://i.imgur.com/wITwa.png http://i.imgur.com/wITwa.png Update: Reading your blog post, I see that this is a wrapper around highlight.js, which is doing the language-guessing (including the second-best guess): http://softwaremaniacs.org/wiki/doku.php/highlight.js:api http://softwaremaniacs.org/wiki/doku.php/highlight.js:api
- nithinbekal 14y ago
  OP here. I can't take credit for that, though. ;-) It uses the highlight.js API for making the guesses, which provides the 2nd best option as well. :)
- reacweb 14y ago
  In conclusion, the site is a very good idea, but highlight.js is really too bad for this kind of use. Raise a ticket on highlight.js
ittan 14y ago
Just tried it out with brainfuck(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck)! ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>. XML or django. then again this could be anything. :P
- nithinbekal 14y ago
  The app depends on highlight.js which currently supports a limited set of languages, and unfortunately, Brainfuck isn't one of them. http://softwaremaniacs.org/media/soft/highlight/test.html http://softwaremaniacs.org/media/soft/highlight/test.html I wonder what would happen to the accuracy of highlight.js highlightAuto method if more languages were to be supported. Highlight.js recognizes languages based on how many language constructs it can recognize. More languages = more overlap in language constructs, and therefore more likelihood of wrong matches.
chuckbot 14y ago
int main(int argv, char **argv) { return 0; } Doesn't look like CS and can't even be java. Adding a printf changes the top suggestion to perl. Adding an include changes the top suggestion to vala. The idea to reduce language recognition to syntax highlighting is a nice idea, but doesn't seem to work.
damian2000 14y ago
Nice job... got my C# and Ruby correct, but FORTRAN was seen as VBSCRIPT.
sbmassey 14y ago
Its not too good at C++. Apparantly, template <typename T> T foo(T t) { return t; } looks like DJANGO or XML.
pavanky 14y ago
It can't understand C. http://i.imgur.com/7hrPE.png http://i.imgur.com/7hrPE.png
- tyrmored 14y ago
  I gave it this and it thought it was Vala: #include <stdio.h> int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { return 0; } Haskell is a very weird guess for yours.
  - nithinbekal 14y ago
    Yup, it does a terrible job with the C family of languages. Hardly ever gets that right. And if you type in any random keys, it often identifies it as Haskell. ;-) It does a decent job with Perl, Python, Ruby, Bash, etc.
    - tyrmored 14y ago
      Yeah, it nailed all the Perl I tried, even rather niche stuff.
  - Akram 14y ago
    It cant even get a "Hello World" C program right. #include<stdio.h> main() { printf("Hello World"); }
deleted 14y ago
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mitchi 14y ago
So bad! #include <stdio.h> XML printf("%d", i); ERLANG
sink 14y ago
Might mention that it sees Scala as Ruby or Python (ouch!). But I did just type in, "bunch of stuff, some programming stuff" and it thought that was Haskell or Coffeescript. Guess those win awards for literate programming?
pud 14y ago
Cool thing. Though it doesn't get ColdFusion. Anything with <cf_____> tags is ColdFusion. <cfset foo = "bar">
tluyben2 14y ago
This definitely needs some work :) http://o7.no/JGT5pv http://o7.no/JGT5pv
jhuni 14y ago
(defn factorial [n] (apply * (range 2 (inc n)))) - Rust or CSS (defun factorial (n) (apply (function *) (upto n))) - MATLAB or Lua
Akram 14y ago
<script> var str="hello world"; </script> This looks like xml. It could also be django, though. I'm not completely sure. //--------------------- How come Django is a programming language?
- drostie 14y ago
  It's in the same sense that PHP is a programming language -- Django has its own idiomatic templating language with loops and other such constructs. It looks like this: {% extends "base.html" %} {% block title %}My amazing blog{% endblock %} {% block content %} {% for entry in blog_entries %} <h2>{{ entry.title }}</h2> <p>{{ entry.body }}</p> {% endfor %} {% endblock %} As for why this thing can't recognize "it looks like HTML + JS", I can't answer that for you -- but there should be a family of responses; "HTML + PHP," "HTML + Django", "HTML + JS" etc.
estenh 14y ago
So, uh... what does this say about PHP? http://i.imgur.com/81uas.jpg http://i.imgur.com/81uas.jpg
tg3 14y ago
it thought my javascript was Lua, my php was bash or ruby, and my ruby was haskell.
deleted 14y ago
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deleted 14y ago
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bad_alloc 14y ago
life←{↑1 ⍵∨.∧3 4=+/,¯1 0 1∘.⊖¯1 0 1∘.⌽⊂⍵} (APL Code for Conway's Game of Life, taken from Wikipedia) Recognized as Haskell. This X[⍋X+.≠' ';] is AVRASM or CSS. UPDATE: It gets better: INTERCAL (the despotic programming language) is recognized as Delphi or SQL. This seems suitable for Delphi ;) (Here's the code: http://cxg.de/_01a19b.htm http://cxg.de/_01a19b.htm)
darkestkhan 14y ago
I put this: with Ada.Text_IO; procedure WTF is type X is array (Positive range <>) of Integer; procedure Print (N: X) is begin for I in N loop Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line (File => Ada.Text_IO.Standard_Output, Item => Integer'Image (N (I)); end loop; end Print; begin null; end WTF; And it can't recognize Ada :) Even when you use standard library. "This looks like VHDL." "It could also be a VBSCRIPT, though I'm not completely sure"
Someone 14y ago
Nice idea, but the quality and/or the breadth of languages it knows about leaves much to be desired. The first language I tried was Forth. I have yet to find a piece of code that it recognizes as such. For example the example from http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExampleForthCode http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExampleForthCode gets a 'VHDL, could also be VBSCRIPT' My next attempt was PostScript. I copied http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_01.html http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_01.ht... (which starts with the giveaway line "%!PS-Adobe-2.0"), and it says 'RUBY, could also be MEL' I guess that the thing would look better of with some kind of thresholding that allows it to say 'I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would say RUBY or MEL' instead.
jvc26 14y ago
Its a neat idea but seems to struggle - misidentifying PHP as BASH, and struggling with Haskell, Go, Clojure, and told me Bash was PERL. I pulled some test code from the What's That Programming Language site which appeared on HN a few weeks ago http://wtpl.heroku.com/ http://wtpl.heroku.com/.
KonradKlause 14y ago
main() { } "This looks like css. It could also be haskell, though. I'm not completely sure." Erm, okay...
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mseepgood 14y ago
Input (Go): ----------------------- package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Hello, 世界") } ----------------------- Response: "This looks like actionscript. It could also be haskell, though. I'm not completely sure." FAIL
hornetblack 14y ago
I put in brainfuck it said it might be VB
Ivatar 14y ago
Doesn't seem to be familiar with factor: : foo ( seq -- nseq ) [ 1 + ] map ; "This looks like ruby. It could also be lua, though. I'm not completely sure." I would have expected a guess at forth, but I really don't think it looks like ruby...
stewie2 14y ago
not accurate at all.

24 points by nithinbekal 14y ago

Impressive that it doesn't just take the best guess; it also informs you of its alternative hypotheses: http://i.imgur.com/wITwa.png http://i.imgur.com/wITwa.png Update: Reading your blog post, I see that this is a wrapper around highlight.js, which is doing the language-guessing (including the second-best guess): http://softwaremaniacs.org/wiki/doku.php/highlight.js:api http://softwaremaniacs.org/wiki/doku.php/highlight.js:api

nithinbekal 14y ago
OP here. I can't take credit for that, though. ;-) It uses the highlight.js API for making the guesses, which provides the 2nd best option as well. :)
reacweb 14y ago
In conclusion, the site is a very good idea, but highlight.js is really too bad for this kind of use. Raise a ticket on highlight.js

ittan 14y ago

Just tried it out with brainfuck(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck)! ++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>++.>+.+++++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.--------.>+.>. XML or django. then again this could be anything. :P

nithinbekal 14y ago
The app depends on highlight.js which currently supports a limited set of languages, and unfortunately, Brainfuck isn't one of them. http://softwaremaniacs.org/media/soft/highlight/test.html http://softwaremaniacs.org/media/soft/highlight/test.html I wonder what would happen to the accuracy of highlight.js highlightAuto method if more languages were to be supported. Highlight.js recognizes languages based on how many language constructs it can recognize. More languages = more overlap in language constructs, and therefore more likelihood of wrong matches.

chuckbot 14y ago

int main(int argv, char **argv) { return 0; } Doesn't look like CS and can't even be java. Adding a printf changes the top suggestion to perl. Adding an include changes the top suggestion to vala. The idea to reduce language recognition to syntax highlighting is a nice idea, but doesn't seem to work.

damian2000 14y ago

Nice job... got my C# and Ruby correct, but FORTRAN was seen as VBSCRIPT.

sbmassey 14y ago

Its not too good at C++. Apparantly, template <typename T> T foo(T t) { return t; } looks like DJANGO or XML.

pavanky 14y ago

It can't understand C. http://i.imgur.com/7hrPE.png http://i.imgur.com/7hrPE.png

tyrmored 14y ago
I gave it this and it thought it was Vala: #include <stdio.h> int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { return 0; } Haskell is a very weird guess for yours.
- nithinbekal 14y ago
  Yup, it does a terrible job with the C family of languages. Hardly ever gets that right. And if you type in any random keys, it often identifies it as Haskell. ;-) It does a decent job with Perl, Python, Ruby, Bash, etc.
  - tyrmored 14y ago
    Yeah, it nailed all the Perl I tried, even rather niche stuff.
- Akram 14y ago
  It cant even get a "Hello World" C program right. #include<stdio.h> main() { printf("Hello World"); }

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mitchi 14y ago

So bad! #include <stdio.h> XML printf("%d", i); ERLANG

sink 14y ago

Might mention that it sees Scala as Ruby or Python (ouch!). But I did just type in, "bunch of stuff, some programming stuff" and it thought that was Haskell or Coffeescript. Guess those win awards for literate programming?

pud 14y ago

Cool thing. Though it doesn't get ColdFusion. Anything with <cf_____> tags is ColdFusion. <cfset foo = "bar">

tluyben2 14y ago

This definitely needs some work :) http://o7.no/JGT5pv http://o7.no/JGT5pv

jhuni 14y ago

(defn factorial [n] (apply * (range 2 (inc n)))) - Rust or CSS (defun factorial (n) (apply (function *) (upto n))) - MATLAB or Lua

Akram 14y ago

drostie 14y ago
It's in the same sense that PHP is a programming language -- Django has its own idiomatic templating language with loops and other such constructs. It looks like this: {% extends "base.html" %} {% block title %}My amazing blog{% endblock %} {% block content %} {% for entry in blog_entries %} <h2>{{ entry.title }}</h2> <p>{{ entry.body }}</p> {% endfor %} {% endblock %} As for why this thing can't recognize "it looks like HTML + JS", I can't answer that for you -- but there should be a family of responses; "HTML + PHP," "HTML + Django", "HTML + JS" etc.

estenh 14y ago

So, uh... what does this say about PHP? http://i.imgur.com/81uas.jpg http://i.imgur.com/81uas.jpg

tg3 14y ago

it thought my javascript was Lua, my php was bash or ruby, and my ruby was haskell.

deleted 14y ago

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deleted 14y ago

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bad_alloc 14y ago

life←{↑1 ⍵∨.∧3 4=+/,¯1 0 1∘.⊖¯1 0 1∘.⌽⊂⍵} (APL Code for Conway's Game of Life, taken from Wikipedia) Recognized as Haskell. This X[⍋X+.≠' ';] is AVRASM or CSS. UPDATE: It gets better: INTERCAL (the despotic programming language) is recognized as Delphi or SQL. This seems suitable for Delphi ;) (Here's the code: http://cxg.de/_01a19b.htm http://cxg.de/_01a19b.htm)

darkestkhan 14y ago

I put this: with Ada.Text_IO; procedure WTF is type X is array (Positive range <>) of Integer; procedure Print (N: X) is begin for I in N loop Ada.Text_IO.Put_Line (File => Ada.Text_IO.Standard_Output, Item => Integer'Image (N (I)); end loop; end Print; begin null; end WTF; And it can't recognize Ada :) Even when you use standard library. "This looks like VHDL." "It could also be a VBSCRIPT, though I'm not completely sure"

Someone 14y ago

Nice idea, but the quality and/or the breadth of languages it knows about leaves much to be desired. The first language I tried was Forth. I have yet to find a piece of code that it recognizes as such. For example the example from http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExampleForthCode http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExampleForthCode gets a 'VHDL, could also be VBSCRIPT' My next attempt was PostScript. I copied http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_01.html http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/ps/bluebook/program_01.ht... (which starts with the giveaway line "%!PS-Adobe-2.0"), and it says 'RUBY, could also be MEL' I guess that the thing would look better of with some kind of thresholding that allows it to say 'I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would say RUBY or MEL' instead.

jvc26 14y ago

Its a neat idea but seems to struggle - misidentifying PHP as BASH, and struggling with Haskell, Go, Clojure, and told me Bash was PERL. I pulled some test code from the What's That Programming Language site which appeared on HN a few weeks ago http://wtpl.heroku.com/ http://wtpl.heroku.com/.

KonradKlause 14y ago

main() { } "This looks like css. It could also be haskell, though. I'm not completely sure." Erm, okay...

deleted 14y ago

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mseepgood 14y ago

Input (Go): ----------------------- package main import "fmt" func main() { fmt.Println("Hello, 世界") } ----------------------- Response: "This looks like actionscript. It could also be haskell, though. I'm not completely sure." FAIL

hornetblack 14y ago

I put in brainfuck it said it might be VB

Ivatar 14y ago

Doesn't seem to be familiar with factor: : foo ( seq -- nseq ) [ 1 + ] map ; "This looks like ruby. It could also be lua, though. I'm not completely sure." I would have expected a guess at forth, but I really don't think it looks like ruby...

stewie2 14y ago

not accurate at all.