Ask HN: What is the most niche programming language that is still written?

9 points by wking 3y ago ↗ HN

I would love to hear about the programming languages that I have never heard about. I don't mean Assembly or anything that is low-level, but mainstream. Even better if you have an example!

13 comments

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amalgamated_inc 3y ago ↗

wking 3y ago ↗

Whoa, I work at Crunchy Data. We focus on Postgres, but this K and KX family is wild. Reading about how it is used for Formula 1 data analytics

082349872349872 3y ago ↗

cf https://t3x.org/klong/ for an even-smaller-audience relative in the family.

poke around the t3x.org domain for more small-audience languages.

082349872349872 3y ago ↗

I would not be surprised if TAL is still used for https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/nonstop.html boxen.

Similarly, https://www.unisys.com/client-education/clearpath-forward-li... probably still uses its bespoke languages ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_Large_Systems#ALGOL ) in places.

wking 3y ago ↗

I wonder how much people who still write these languages are paid? I feel like it is one extreme or the other. You are rolling in it or you just don't know any better.

082349872349872 3y ago ↗

My WAG is that they might have handcuffs of 2x mainstream, but aren't "rolling in it".

Unlike K (or the APLs in general), all these languages are pidgin algol, hence not that difficult to train.

082349872349872 3y ago ↗

Do you have any interest in academic languages?

After a half a century or so without, BCPL recently got floats (for a flight simulator): https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/BCPL.html

I prefer the author's MCPL: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/MCPL.html but have no idea if anyone is currently using it.

[Edit: looks like Martin backported pattern matching from MCPL into BCPL ca. Oct 2022, so that's recent signs of life for both strains!]

2snakes 3y ago ↗

Brainfuck lol

fhaldridge7 3y ago ↗

Check "advent of code" solutions. Some of the people invent their own programming languages to solve problems.

tothrowaway 3y ago ↗

JScript is Microsoft's JavaScript that can run server side. I guess it was a thing in the late 90s and early 00s. The "Click Commerce" web CMS/framework was largely written in it. They pivoted from commerce to medical research, and the software is still being used by dozens of institutions.

simonblack 3y ago ↗

Z80 assembly.

_448 3y ago ↗

Pike (https://pike.lysator.liu.se)

rurban 3y ago ↗

Rexx at IBM, but I guess there are several such internal langs used in similar obscure companies.