Awesome Esolangs

Curated list of awesome esoteric programming languages and resources.

"An esoteric programming language, or esolang, is a computer programming language designed to experiment with weird ideas, to be hard to program in, or as a joke, rather than for practical use."
esolang.org

Contents

• Languages
• Resources
• Articles
• Community

Languages

• Ajsone - Language defined completely in JSON.
• Befunge - Two-dimensional language.
• Brainfuck - Minimalist language using only 8 single-character commands.
• Charcoal - Concise language for sketching ASCII art.
• Chef - Programs that look like cooking recipes.
• Chicken - Only 1 valid symbol: 'chicken'.
• ChuckScript - Unary-based language, where the code is a single number.
• DNA# - Language based on the structure of the DNA.
• Dots - A turing-complete language with only one symbol: ".".
• Emojicode - Full-blown programming language consisting of emojis.
• Enterprise™ - Non deterministic unnecessarily statically typed language.
• False - Heavily offuscated language with a minimal implementation.
• Fetlang - Designed such that source code looks like poorly written fetish erotica.
• INTERCAL - Parody language intended to be completely different from other languages.
• JSFuck - Esoteric programming style based on the atomic parts of JavaScript.
• LolCode - Language with keywords based on the lolcat meme expressions.
• Malbolge - Named after the 8th level of hell, is designed to be as difficult as possible to program.
• Omgrofl - Syntax resembling Internet slang.
• Ook! - Brainfuck-based language, where the commands are orangutan words.
• reMorse - Morse-styled language.
• Rockstar - Designed for creating computer programs that are also song lyrics.
• Piet - Language in which programs look like abstract paintings using colors as code. Named after Piet Mondrian.
• Shakespeare - Language where the code appear to be Shakespearean plays.
• Suzy - 3D language inspired in Befunge.
• Thue - Matrioshka language based on nondeterministic string rewriting of a semi-Thue grammar.
• Unary - Brainfuck-based language where all the commands are 0.
• Velato - Language that uses MIDI files as source, programs are defined by the pitch and order of notes.
• Whenever - Language that does things whenever it wants.
• Whitespace - Use only white-characters (space, tabs and newlines).
• Z - Use only the letter z.

Resources

• DM's Esoteric Programming Languages - List of esoteric languages and algorithms written by dangermouse.
• Esofiles - The Esoteric Files Archive, an archive of implementations of esoteric programming languages and examples.
• Esolang - Wiki of esoteric programming languages and related Resources.
• Rosettacode - Provides examples in different languages, including esoteric languages.
• Wikipedia/Esoteric programming languages - Wikipedia list of esoteric languages.
• On the Turing Completeness Of MS PowerPoint - Turing Machine on PowerPoint.

Articles

• Let's Build a Basic Interpreter (Ruslan's Blog) - Series of articles explaining the basics of compilers and interpreters and how to build one.
• Six programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding - A post by Yevgeniy Brikman describing different programming paradigms that are not commonly applied.

Community

• Freenode IRC Channel - The #esoteric IRC channel on freenode.
• Reddit Esolangs - Reddit community on esolangs.

License

The content of this list is available under CC0 public domain dedication.

Logo is used by permission of David Morgan-Mar