non-mainstream programming languages

this weekend i experimented with google's go a bit. i kind of like it and i am looking forward to version 1.0 at the beginning of next year. i also checked out scala a bit recently. it looks like a nice alternative to java.

i thought a thread about non-mainstream (or even esoteric) programming languages would be interesting.

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html



what languages that aren't in the top ten here do you like (delphi, lua and actionscript don't count either)? did you use one for a real project?

I'd like to hear some opinions on D. What I read did sound pretty nice but it seems it doesn't get that much attention...

http://lolcode.com/

my favorites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_(programming_language)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chef_(programming_language)

does anyone can program a very old language (like ALGOL60)?

Scala as alternative to Java? lol

Anyway here some other languages:
SML, Haskell, Erlang (all functional programming languages)

why not? details please! superficially it for sure looks much nicer than java but i haven't really used it.

i like d. but i didn't do any bigger project with it either. d is similar to c++ but without some of its biggest annoyances. i currently find go more interesting though.

i really dislike c++ and only use it if i absolutely need the functionality of a library that isn't available for other languages. java and c# are an improvement but i wouldn't really call them great languages either. i more and more think that it's better to ignore the popularity of a language and concentrate on what is fun to use. it also doesn't hurt to know a lot of languages.

basic and c are very old too.

Clojure

Haskell

Prolog

WDL

You have gone to far, Michael!

let´s create our own crazy programming language

the language should
- be easy to learn (like lite-c)
- be free of features like classes, generics or reflection (no pain no gain)
- allow writing high intellectually looking source code comments
- be robust, secure, scalable, bla, bla (just for marketing)
- be supported by SED
written applications should
- be runnable on windows-pc´s and galep-chips (and maybe, in the next century, also on android)
- look fantastic or crash by a malfunction

we could name it "jcl" (an recursive acronym for "jcl coding language")

I want to try Shakespeare.


Well that sounds great except No.

...except Yes! Not to just disagree with Redeemer for the sake of it, I really like the idea of "jcl" standing for "jcl coding language", and therefore we must create such a language.

Wouldnt be easier to just re-name C-Script to JCL?

i like the jcl idea too.

has anyone here worked on his own language? i have never looked into this and wouldn't even know where to start. i think some languages like boo make it quite easy to change their syntax though.

start with lex and yacc, it's not that hard.

Well Scala (afaik) is a language which adds features from the functional programming world to an object oriented programming language. So if you only use it in an object oriented way you miss out on many great features. But yes you didn't say that, so of course it's an alternative to Java. But what I meant was: don't miss out on the functional part of Scala, it makes a lot of things easier. Of course functional programming is not the answer to all problems.
Anyway Scala is a language I want to look into in the future too.

By the way another language (family) not on the list is:
Assembler

edit:
Another one would be Fortran

cobol

I like Delphi!

Try http://www.antlr.org/ to write your own language and/or get the "Dragon Book".

@gri: If you really want to make money, grab all Cobol developers you can find and build up an IT Service Company for banks and insurances. You'll get rich!

when i worked at the red cross during my alternative civilian service they asked me if i could fix a problem in their administrative software. it was written in cobol and the code looked so horrible to me that i said: no, thanks!

but i guess you could really make a lot of money with cobol skills.

i dont like antlr. complicated overwrite-syntax and slower than a snail on valium

i prefer goldparser. it has many native engines for many programming languages, is fast, has a good ide and the parser-syntax is very easy

A small funny song came in mind as I thought about Fortran.

Orignal song ist from the beatles "Let it be"

This is awesome!!! I'm still laugthing!

very nice, love it