Wow. The Greeks did well to invent runes that hold six numbers in a tiny square box. I can't imagine the precision hammers and chisels they would need for that.
I hate to sound alarmist, but I'm seriously worried that we're reaching "peak novelty programming language". If we don't start exploring alternative uses of free time now, we're going to be in serious trouble soon.
hey I understand the sentiment. But I work on "serious" tech all week and show that to my boss or my client. If I have a joke project like this or "gitjk" then I show it to HN, and people seem to like and remember them more than any of the "serious" work that I've done
Well said. This post is like a breath of fresh air, because it doesn't pretend to be useful like those speculative business ideas or new JS frameworks.
No one complains when someone shows up with a new toy Lisp or transpiler language, but implement a language using unusual Unicode codepoints and all of a sudden monkeys are swinging from the chandeliers.
And yet even a toy language is a more productive use of someone's time than the fruitless political commentary around here.
It bothers me more that they all tend to be reskins of conventional imperative languages. It’s fun when it’s a joke, but a lot of non-joke languages are built the same way. We don’t need new syntax for the same semantics—we need new semantics.
to nitpick, I believe those used in Linear A are not technically "runes", i.e. the runes are only the ones used in writing systems for german languages, and derived from old italic alphabets.
I don't know about write-only. I've sat behind some APLers and they seem to know exactly what's going on. To me it would be write only much like if you made me write a letter in Spanish. I would be looking stuff up and probably forget what about it a couple months later.
I wrote a lot of APL code for one semester. Trust me: mine was write-only to a point I wouldn't be able to figure out in the afternoon the code I wrote in the morning...
In time, it's possible to become fluent and recognize the idioms and larger patterns that form the language, but it seems to be a painful process.
Peirce reckoned that there are three basic signs: icons, indices (indexes?), and symbols. An icon looks like the thing it is representing. An index points to it (like your index finger does, this is called indexicality). A symbol stands in for and is unlike the thing it represents, like 4 for |||| things.
So because equality is represented with a scales you _should_ have said, "I guess it's nice when the signs have iconicity." :)
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 86.4 ms ] threadAnd yet even a toy language is a more productive use of someone's time than the fruitless political commentary around here.
Kidding aside, I saw a go program (maybe Ken Thompson wrote it?) that assigned a variable to three smiley faces.
Looks like they didn't have the right unicode font for L
In time, it's possible to become fluent and recognize the idioms and larger patterns that form the language, but it seems to be a painful process.
Peirce reckoned that there are three basic signs: icons, indices (indexes?), and symbols. An icon looks like the thing it is representing. An index points to it (like your index finger does, this is called indexicality). A symbol stands in for and is unlike the thing it represents, like 4 for |||| things.
So because equality is represented with a scales you _should_ have said, "I guess it's nice when the signs have iconicity." :)