Esoteric programming language
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Esoteric programming languages are those which are designed as a proof of concept, and not with the intention of being adopted for real-world programming. Consequently, usability is rarely a high priority for such languages. The usual aim is to remove or replace conventional language features while still maintaining a language that is Turing-complete.
The earliest esoteric language was Intercal, designed in 1972 with the stated aim of being as fundamentally unlike any existing language as possible. Other noteworthy esoteric languages are:
- Brainfuck, a Turing tarpit consisting of only eight instructions
- Unlambda, an even more minimal language based on the functional programming paradigm
- Befunge, in which programs are arranged on a two-dimensional grid