The Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Coding
3 days ago
- #computational-art
- #esoteric-programming
- #hacker-culture
- The author was inspired to create their own programming language after reading about Minesweeper's hidden computational logic.
- Esoteric languages (esolangs) challenge traditional programming norms, exploring unconventional forms and purposes.
- Early esolangs like INTERCAL, FALSE, brainfuck, and Befunge emerged from hacker culture in the 1990s.
- Piet, an esolang where programs are written as pixelated images, exemplifies the collaborative and artistic nature of esolangs.
- The author founded esoteric.codes to document and explore esolang aesthetics, connecting them to computational art and poetry.
- Esolangs often exist as conceptual ideas without implementations, reflecting a hacker folk art tradition.
- The book "Forty-Four Esolangs" presents languages as prompts and realizations, inviting reader interpretation and experimentation.
- Programming languages are metaphors, with syntax and semantics defining their behavior and possibilities.
- All implementations in the book are open-source under the MIT License, encouraging community engagement and creativity.