Esoteric Programming: Weird Languages That Actually Work

When you think of programming, you probably imagine Python, JavaScript, or Java—clean, practical, built to solve real problems. But there’s another side to code: esoteric programming, a niche field of programming languages designed not for efficiency, but for challenge, humor, or artistic expression. Also known as esoteric languages, these are the weird cousins of coding—built to confuse, amuse, or break the rules. Think of them as poetry written in binary. They don’t run faster, use less memory, or make your app work better. But they make you think differently about how code works.

Take Brainfuck, a language with only eight simple commands, all written as symbols like <, >, +, and -. It can technically do anything any other language can—but reading a Brainfuck program feels like decoding a riddle. Then there’s INTERCAL, a language invented as a joke in 1972 that mocks programming conventions by forcing you to write code in absurd, overly complex ways. Want to assign a value? You have to say "PLEASE" and "GIVE UP" in the right order. These aren’t tools. They’re puzzles. And people still write real programs in them—not because they have to, but because they want to.

Why does this matter? Because esoteric programming isn’t just about weird syntax. It’s a mirror. It shows you how rigid our normal languages are, how much we take for granted in syntax, structure, and logic. Learning even a little Brainfuck teaches you about memory pointers, loops, and conditionals in a way no tutorial ever could. It strips code down to its bare bones. And that’s why coders who’ve wrestled with INTERCAL often say they understand real programming better afterward. These languages aren’t useless—they’re training wheels for your brain.

What you’ll find in the posts below aren’t guides on how to build apps in these languages. There aren’t many. Instead, you’ll find stories about people who tried, failed, and sometimes succeeded. You’ll see how these languages connect to deeper ideas in computer science—like Turing completeness, minimalism, and the limits of human-readable code. Some posts dig into how these languages influenced real tools. Others just laugh at how ridiculous they are. Either way, they all prove one thing: code doesn’t have to be practical to be powerful.