Obscure programming languages

PlNG_

Discuss obscure or underrated programming languages here.
(not esolangs)

MagicCrayon9342

Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.

Redstone1080

Everyone knows about Python, but I bet five whole Canadian dollars that not very many people have heard of Cython. It's similar to Python, but it can interop with C. Basically, you can define things in C using the ‘cdef’ keyword. Example:

cdef def factors_of(num):
    arr = [fac if num % fac == 0 else 0 for fac in range(1,num+1)]
    while 0 in arr:
        arr.remove(0)
    return arr

cdef def is_prime(num):
    return factors_of(num) == [1, num]

print(f"Factors of 13: {factors_of(13)=}")
print(f"Is 13 prime? {is_prime(13)=}")

(No highlighting so the code doesn't get squished together.)

The example defines factors_of and is_prime as C functions, and then the print() statements print out the results of factors_of(13) and is_prime(13).

Result:

Factors of 13: factors_of(13)=[1, 13]
Is 13 prime? is_prime(13)=True

Cython is actually used in most libraries relating to scientific and mathematic analysis, like SciPy and pandas.

Last edited by Redstone1080 (Jan. 2, 2023 16:28:05)

PkmnQ

Concatenative languages in general. It has some nice ideas and I think more people should at least know about it. I don't think I know enough about it to justify making a topic about it, but I might make one when I know more.

Last edited by PkmnQ (Jan. 3, 2023 13:10:20)

ajskateboarder

Haxe is a cross-compiling language which supports many targets to other languages. On it's own, it has a virtual machine and interpreter (for anyone who has a speed requirement). This is the language HaxeFlixel uses and was used to make a little game called Friday Night Funkin'

Luau is a derivative of Lua which supports gradual typing allowing Lua developers to easily bring type-safety to their code. If you heard about this from Roblox, fun fact, it was actually made by them!

MagicCrayon9342 wrote:
Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.

Clearly you don't know how many people use Java

Last edited by ajskateboarder (Jan. 2, 2023 17:59:54)

uwv

D (sometimes also referred to as Dlang) is definitely pretty obscure, it is an functional, imperative, OOP systems language (compiled) with a garbage collector and performance similar to that other systems languages (seriously its a super nice language)

Hello world in D:

import std.stdio;
void main() {
  writeln("Hello world!");
}

rdococ

The various Smalltalk dialects get overlooked a lot- they're live, object-oriented development environments written mostly in themselves and with a very simple syntax.

BreadcatGames

uwv wrote:
D (sometimes also referred to as Dlang) is definitely pretty obscure, it is an functional, imperative, OOP systems language (compiled) with a garbage collector and performance similar to that other systems languages (seriously its a super nice language)

Hello world in D:
import std.stdio;
void main() {
  writeln("Hello world!");
}

Is D general purpose?

ajskateboarder

BreadcatGames wrote:
(#8)
Is D general purpose?

Indeed.

BreadcatGames

ajskateboarder wrote:
BreadcatGames wrote:
(#8)
Is D general purpose?
Indeed.

It also seems to have a game engine based on it on GitHub

PPPDUD

uwv wrote:
D (sometimes also referred to as Dlang) is definitely pretty obscure, it is an functional, imperative, OOP systems language (compiled) with a garbage collector and performance similar to that other systems languages (seriously its a super nice language)

Hello world in D:
import std.stdio;
void main() {
  writeln("Hello world!");
}

Lovely! Looks a lot like C, too!

PlNG_

anyone here tried or heard of Rebol?
it's an object description language like JSON but it's also a scripting language, and you can define your own sub-languages using Rebol.

view layout [
    text "Hello World!"
    button "Click this" [alert "clicked"]
]

reading from URLs is the same with local files:

print read Http://example.com

it's abandoned but Red is a mostly compatible language that is FOSS

Last edited by PlNG_ (Jan. 3, 2023 00:53:43)

gilbert_given_189

MagicCrayon9342 wrote:
Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.

Not as obscure (and verbose) than COBOL though. That monster smokes Java hard.

ajskateboarder

gilbert_given_189 wrote:
(#13)
MagicCrayon9342 wrote:
Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.
Not as obscure (and verbose) than COBOL though. That monster smokes Java hard.

People who know about COBOL are probably retired, read some biography where someone used it, or they watched the Fireship video.

PkmnQ

ajskateboarder wrote:
gilbert_given_189 wrote:
(#13)
MagicCrayon9342 wrote:
Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.
Not as obscure (and verbose) than COBOL though. That monster smokes Java hard.
People who know about COBOL are probably retired, read some biography where someone used it, or they watched the Fireship video.

or one of the Truttle1 videos

Redstone1080

PkmnQ wrote:
(#15)
ajskateboarder wrote:
gilbert_given_189 wrote:
(#13)
MagicCrayon9342 wrote:
Java, everyone knows about it but i believe it's syntax is pretty obscure.
Not as obscure (and verbose) than COBOL though. That monster smokes Java hard.
People who know about COBOL are probably retired, read some biography where someone used it, or they watched the Fireship video.
or one of the Truttle1 videos

Yay, someone else that knows Truttle1!

NFlex23

PlNG_ wrote:
anyone here tried or heard of Rebol?
it's an object description language like JSON but it's also a scripting language, and you can define your own sub-languages using Rebol.
view layout [
    text "Hello World!"
    button "Click this" [alert "clicked"]
] 
reading from URLs is the same with local files:
print read Http://example.com
it's abandoned but Red is a mostly compatible language that is FOSS

Ooh, that's really cool! I'll have to look into it more.

ajskateboarder

PlNG_ wrote:
(#12)
anyone here tried or heard of Rebol?
it's an object description language like JSON but it's also a scripting language, and you can define your own sub-languages using Rebol.
view layout [
    text "Hello World!"
    button "Click this" [alert "clicked"]
] 
reading from URLs is the same with local files:
print read Http://example.com
it's abandoned but Red is a mostly compatible language that is FOSS

I've seen this somewhere but I haven't heard about Red! Probably obscure since it's primarily made for desktop apps, but still quite underrated with HTTP and JSON parsing OOTB. I'm giving this a try in the future.

NFlex23

The Red docs weren't kidding when they said that it was easy to get started. Download a single .exe, double click it, and it runs the repl. I'm impressed.

Jonathan50

Dylan: Apple's Scheme kinda thing from the 90s, with a sort of Common Lisp Object System, and an Algol-like syntax because parentheses don't sell (but I think it stayed pretty obscure anyway, and now there's Open Dylan)

Self: “Like Smalltalk but more so.” The original prototyping OOP language – OOP without classes. JavaScript took this idea but sort of muddled it with constructor functions and “new”. Morphic was originally made in Self before being ported to Squeak and used in Scratch.

Object Logo: Logo with prototyping OOP, I think.

Etoys: Kinda Logo-inspired and an influence on Scratch, I think.

F#: Microsoft's ML

Visual FoxPro: Umm

Prolog: Logic programming

Other complicated 60's and 70's languages

Oz: An innovative language (according to bharvey) with lots of paradigms including logic programming that's far too complex for me.

Last edited by Jonathan50 (Jan. 4, 2023 04:52:48)

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