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The worst programming language ever - Maximilian Hohmann - 11-14-2021 04:57 PM
Hello!
By chance I stumbled across this Youtube video The worst programming language ever (no, it's not RPL ;-) ). It's a humorous talk about creating the worst ever computer language by throwing in all the bad parts of other languages. A funny way to kill an hour on a grey and cold november afternoon.
Regards
Max
RE: The worst programming language ever - EugeneNine - 11-15-2021 01:30 AM
I thought that was (Microsoft's) C#
RE: The worst programming language ever - teenix - 11-15-2021 01:37 AM
Try the EDUC-8 home built computer from the 70's, that will twist your brain cells.
cheers
Tony
RE: The worst programming language ever - Thomas Okken - 11-15-2021 06:40 AM
(11-15-2021 01:30 AM)EugeneNine Wrote: I thought that was (Microsoft's) C#
I've done a bit of C# development at work, and I thought it was fine.
I'm sure it helps that I'm very familiar with Java. After all, C# is what Microsoft came up with after their attempt to hijack Java from Sun was shot down in court. They realized that Java had major advantages, and so they ended up designing something so similar as to be almost indistinguishable.
RE: The worst programming language ever - Ren - 11-15-2021 02:29 PM
I didn't finish the video, because of the length, but it was enjoyable.
Was what he said about the origin of Visual Basic true?
IIRC, Ruby on Rails started as an April Fool's joke.
RE: The worst programming language ever - KeithB - 11-15-2021 02:57 PM
Of course there are *purposely* pathological languages. MarkCC discusses some. I think the worst might be BrainF**k.
RE: The worst programming language ever - robve - 11-15-2021 09:39 PM
Thanks for sharing an entertaining video. I had ignored this video purposely before, thinking it is either uninformative or all about PL/I as a successor to Fortran, COBOL and Algol, the group of early PL that are commonly criticized in university undergraduate programming language courses for various reasons. This post made me reconsider, so I watched it till the end with some amusement.
Why PL/I? PL/I was the language that "combines features of numerous other languages" or "everything for everybody" (great quote from Sebesta). One of the many goals was that "there were to be no reserved words" to make programming "easier". As a consequence programmers could write code like this line that actually compiles and runs:
IF ELSE THEN ELSE=THEN ELSE THEN=ELSE
Take that RPL!
- Rob
RE: The worst programming language ever - bbergman - 11-15-2021 09:49 PM
(11-15-2021 02:29 PM)Ren Wrote: Was what he said about the origin of Visual Basic true?
I don't ever remember hearing that about VB, but it's possible. It's clear that wasn't one of his favorites, but there were/are far worse languages out there. More plausible was the fact that he worked for one of the biggest competitors to VB (SQLWindows), and he probably didn't like the fact that VB survived, and SQLWindows didn't. Even PowerBuilder did better.
I sense some sour grapes...
RE: The worst programming language ever - David Hayden - 11-19-2021 10:22 PM
My votes for worst programming languages:
APL: A wonderfully expressive language, but it's basically write-only. reading an APL program is torture.
BCPL. Data is untyped. Operators are typed. So a variable is just a blob and if you want to add two integers you say blob (integer +) blob. It's up to you to ensure that the blobs are integers.
BCPL highlights something curious: at the machine code level, computers work like that: data (memory) has no type, but operators do. It's completely the opposite in high level languages where you specify your data's type and then "+" means different things depending on what type of data it's operating on.
Notice that syRPL is in between. Both data and operators are typed. It's up to the programmer to ensure that "integer add" (#+) is used with actual integers as arguments.
RE: The worst programming language ever - Felix Gross - 11-20-2021 09:41 AM
I really recommend the article by Mateas, Montfort: A Box, Darkly:
Obfuscation, Weird Languages, and Code Aesthetics. In Proceedings of the 6th Digital Arts and Culture Conference, IT University of Copenhagen, 1-3 Dec 2005, pp. 144-153 (google it).
I covers inter alia Brainf***k. Here is a Hello World program in that wonderful language:
++++++++++[>+++++++>++++++++++>+++>+<<<<>++.>+.++
+++++..+++.>++.<<+++++++++++++++.>.+++.------.---
-----.>+.>.
INTERCAL is also entertaining.
RE: The worst programming language ever - Ren - 11-22-2021 02:41 PM
(11-19-2021 10:22 PM)David Hayden Wrote: Notice that syRPL is in between. Both data and operators are typed. It's up to the programmer to ensure that "integer add" (#+) is used with actual integers as arguments.
Typing both data and operators sounds like more work (I'm lazy), but it also seems like a more secure way to do it (I like security, but not at the expense of freedom! B^)
RE: The worst programming language ever - floppy - 11-22-2021 02:54 PM
(11-14-2021 04:57 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote: Hello!
By chance I stumbled across this Youtube video The worst programming language ever (no, it's not RPL ;-) ). It's a humorous talk about creating the worst ever computer language by throwing in all the bad parts of other languages. A funny way to kill an hour on a grey and cold november afternoon.
Regards
Max
video not accessible
RE: The worst programming language ever - Albert Chan - 11-22-2021 05:15 PM
A simple youtube search, it is still available.
RE: The worst programming language ever - KeithB - 11-22-2021 08:41 PM
I could not view it because I do not have a YouTube Account.
RE: The worst programming language ever - rprosperi - 11-22-2021 09:29 PM
(11-22-2021 08:41 PM)KeithB Wrote: I could not view it because I do not have a YouTube Account.
You don't need a YT account (which is actually a google account) to view this, or most other videos there. In fact, don't sign-in when you go there, unless you want to help google make $ advertising to you...
RE: The worst programming language ever - Garth Wilson - 11-22-2021 10:28 PM
I don't have a YouTube account either; but I learn lots from YouTube videos every day.
RE: The worst programming language ever - John Smitherman - 11-25-2021 02:46 PM
My vote for the worst is COBOL.
RE: The worst programming language ever - floppy - 11-25-2021 03:48 PM
(11-25-2021 02:46 PM)John Smitherman Wrote: My vote for the worst is COBOL.My neighbour who is a programmer is still working in banking and insurance companies in Germany because they still have big computers working with COBOL. He moves next to pension.
He earns approx 100k Eur per year. So, working with the bad can be good
;-)
(I never has done COBOL)
And: I recommend people should start to learn COBOL because these companies are probably ready to pay a high amount of money to young programmers doing that (for few more years. how long? dont know. probably till when the banks will invest huge amount of money for migrating the customer database from mainframe computers working with COBOL into modern less sure systems..).
RE: The worst programming language ever - Dave Frederickson - 11-25-2021 03:53 PM
Whitespace. Uses only space, tab, and LF characters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language)
RE: The worst programming language ever - floppy - 11-25-2021 04:09 PM
The video is hilarous. Thanks for sharing.
This give the evidence that programming language should be revisited with communication psychologists and UX developpers (for the programmers)