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ESOTERIC.CODES
Languages, platforms, and systems that break from the norms of computing. Esoteric programming languages (esolangs) and styles, constraint-based coding, code art, code poetry, more.   About esoteric.codes...
Languages, platforms, and systems that break from the norms of computing. More...
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POSTS (GENERAL SUBJECTS)

Posts on larger ideas in code art, esolangs, and code poetry (as opposed to specific projects). See the full list here.
Coding in Indigenous African Languages

A new wave of African programming languages offer an escape from the ubiquity of English

Fat Dactyls

On the Collaborative Spirit of Esolanging, or: If You Make a Language and You Are Very Lucky, People Will Misuse it

What Programming Language Would Yoko Ono Create?

Looking to Fluxus for strategies of breaking down the ordinary performance of code-writing into a new form of art

KFC Mascot Col. Sanders Talks Malbolge Programming on General Hospital—Wait, What?

Col. Sanders's bizarre appearance on General Hospital includes an "herbs and spices"-related cyberattack using the self-encrypting esolang Malbolge

Computing with JS's undefined

Why use numbers when you can leave them ... undefined?

Classical Chinese as a Programming Language

Classical Chinese is recursive in a way unusual to natural languages

Esoprogramming and Computational Idealism

Through the concept of computational idealism, we can see how some esoprograms re-assert order within the seeming chaos of the esolang. They "rehabilitate" the language by showing that simple, elegant code can be written within it, despite its alien appearance

Make Your Hard Drive Infinite With These Three File Systems

Having storage issues? These three file systems make your hard drive virtually limitless.

<body> Building: the code performance of Joana Chicau

Joana Chicau brings classical ballet training to a new form of live web performance, in live-editing existing web pages. She does so with a mix of pre-set and spontaneously written html and javascript on top of found material.

Esoteric.Codes at ZKM

c0d3.Attorney

A web oddity full of generative images that claims to collect Malbolge programs

Code Witchery Abounds as the IOCCC Celebrates the Strangest C Programs for its 25th Year

There’s Still a Chance to Participate in this Insanely Large Polyglot

A single program that runs in 191 languages and counting

The 128-Language Quine Relay

An astonishing 128 language Ouroborous quine

Sentences on Code Art

0. Computers are logical systems that arise as often by accident as by design.

Three Obfuscators for Natural Language

A Programming Language With Only One Command and the Anti-Imperialist Operating System Built on it

On SUBLEQ, the most basic of languages, and DawnOS, the obsessive OS built on it

A Gentle Introduction to FRACTRAN

LeWitt and Non-Utility of Language

Some thoughts on LeWitt, Groys, and esolangs

TerrariaClone: an incomprehensible hellscape of spaghetti code

Google Translate Poetry

Lessons From Early AI: On Cognition and Reasoning

A look at early AI, another interface between computation and human understanding

Exercises in Programming Style

Tackling the same programmatic problem in many different approaches, from the practical to the very strange

The Restrained Voice of Code

Do we not express emotional content in code or do we just not see it?

The Less Humble Programmer

When personal style and overt cleverness are the point: esolanging, code golf, and obfuscated code as a counterpoint to Dijkstra

Executing Code off the Machine

or: Non-Deterministic Processes Don’t Have to Give You a Heart Attack

Vocabulary-based Esolangs

Vocabulary-based esolangs are sometimes overlooked. Here's a look at those who use intriguing lexicons to challenge conventional notions of computation

Null Programs and the Uninscribed

Empty files, blank canvases, and other seemingly content-less carriers of meaning

Vocabulary-Oriented and Behavior-Oriented Esolangs, Part 2: Metaphor && Myth

A contrast between languages engaging with logic and those engaging with the surface of code (continued)

Conceptual Languages (Part 2)

Languages where coding isn't the point

Vocabulary-Oriented and Behavior-Oriented Esolangs

A contrast between languages engaging with logic and those engaging with the surface of code

Esolangs as an Experiential Practice

We experience esolangs in an active, participatory way, usually by writing code. The esolanger asks a question through the language; the esoprogrammers explore this by writing code within the language.

Code Art, Code Poetry, and Esolangs

Differentiating three disciplines within creative coding

Unnecessary and Kallisti: Purely Conceptual Languages

Unusable for any kind of programming, these languages embrace the extremes of dematerialized digital practice

Self-Modifying Code

Code that changes itself as it runs

On tokens & vocabulary: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! vs Ook!

Brainfuck Programming: How to write the number 36

How to think in brainfuck by constructing a single number

See the full list here.
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Created by Daniel Temkin, 2011

Feel free to reach out at contact@esoteric.codes

Except where otherwise noted, all content is released under the CC Attribution 4.0 International license

Esoteric.Codes covers algorithmic theater, computational poetry, conlangs, ephemeral digital performance, disruptive codes, weird hc/i, differential thought platforms, the digital ephemeral, null programs and deletions, unstable linguistics, structure as content, machine disobedience, new relationships between programmers and their primary progeny (bugs), useless machines (Shannon/Minksy), synthetic languages, circuitous systems, constraint sets for coders, paraconsistent calculi, and other platforms, systems, and languages that challenge the conventions of computing. More about the site