INTERCAL - programming for ubergeeks
Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 3:06 pm
I've encountered a weird programming language called INTERCAL:
More info on: http://www.catb.org/~esr/intercal/
Please, take all this with a train load of salt.
The full name of the compiler is "Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym", which is, for obvious reasons, abbreviated "INTERCAL".
The language designed to be Turing-complete but as fundamentally unlike any existing language as possible. Expressions that look like line noise. Control constructs that will make you gasp, make you laugh, and possibly make you hurl. Data structures? We don't need no steenking data structures!
It is clearly a programming language for techno-masochists.Alexander Garrett wrote a paper on INTERCAL for his Spring 1997 Programming Languages: Theory and Design class. Alexander writes:
The obvious choice was INTERCAL (I'm still quite surprised that I'm the only one who picked it -- most people did Java??). Anyway, it was not favourably received...when [the professor] handed it back, he said, "Ah. I see you're someone with a sense of humour. Unfortunately for you, I'm not."
More info on: http://www.catb.org/~esr/intercal/
My brain hurts even looking at that code. This must be the biggest parody on programming languages (and the alpha geeks who use those) ever.INTERCAL manual wrote:Sample Program
Shown below is a relatively simple INTERCAL program which will read in 32-bit unsigned integers, treat them as signed, 2’s-complement numbers, and print out their absolute values. The program exits if the absolute value is zero. Note in particular the inversion routine (statements 6 through 14), which could be greatly simplified if the subroutine library (see section 7) were used.
A more detailed analysis of a program is made in section 8 of this manual.
Please, take all this with a train load of salt.
