Name your new programming language



  • Programming languages have boring names these days.  Coffee is boring, endless variations on the letter C is boring, clever acronyms are just plain wrong, and recursive ones... don't get me started.  So my creative challenge to you is to think of a class of names and come up with some good examples that would be attractive to the geek crowd.  I'm sure a lot of these have been thought of before, so no need to point out prior art or worry about copyrights - you'd probably pick a variation on the name if you were really following through.

    Example:

    Classic Video Games

    • Frogger
    • Pong
    • PacMan
    • Ms.PacMan (Microsoft's variation?)

    Children's outdoor games

    • FourSquare
    • DodgeBall
    • WallBall

    Wedgee would be a great name for a language.  AtomicWedgee would of course be its successor.



    1. APL (oops already taken)
      2. THE (already an operating system by Dijkstra)
      3. PL1 (oops, taken)


      those are seriously the first 3 things I would probably come up with.   if I made a new one it would be called PL/2.  if it was object oriented it would be OOPL  that has a nice ring to it I think.


  • I think a really hip-sounding name for a program language would be Spank. Is it an acronym? I'm not sure yet.

    How about variations on cheeses?

    • C<font color="#ffa500">#</font>EDDAR
    • Feta (really, good as it is)
    • Swish ( = Swiss)
    • Brie

    Too 'cheesy?' How about languages derived from fictional detectives?

    • Holmes
    • Marple
    • Hercule and/or Poirot
    • Hammer
    • Magnum (I'm really starting to like these)
    and of course
    • Shaft



  • Most of these are pretty random
    Dodge/Dodgy
    Bug--
    EXPERT (as opposed to BASIC)

    Or how about the language 'Comment': the preliminary syntax:
    comments // code here
    comments /* code
      here */ comments
    comments # code here
    comments <!-- code here
     and here -->
    rem code here
    comments
    beginrem
    lots
    of
    cod here
    endrem
    comments ' code
    'code
    ;code

    This could be used as a preprocessor language for just about anything.



  • Carpe Diem
    A language that abstracts most of Python's functionality to a higher level.

    Special C
    A breakfast language. Contains foul language. Works really well with Milk

    Automata
    It will have no conditional statements. Who needs conditionals.

    Bleep
    A language especially suited for coding hardware drivers. It will output errors as a series of PC-speaker beeps and boops.

    Smoochies
    Completely unusable unless you set the syntax-colouring scheme to shades of pink and purple, including the text background. Cannot be used for actual programming.

    Loaf
    An RDB(MS). Special ability to 'bake' data, leaving it fully immutable. Specify Crust to secure it under various filesystems.



  • @Oscar L said:

     So my creative challenge to you is to think of a class of names and come up with some good examples that would be attractive to the geek crowd.



    Let's try something exotic, something they already have heard of, but never seen in real life:

    Girl
    GirlFriend
    GeekGirlFriend

    BTW, these are very challenging languages... complex syntax with merciless checks and cryptic error messages, indeterministic semantic and a lot of unexpected behaviour.



  • @ammoQ said:

    @Oscar L said:

     So my creative challenge to you is to think of a class of names and come up with some good examples that would be attractive to the geek crowd.



    Let's try something exotic, something they already have heard of, but never seen in real life:

    Girl
    GirlFriend
    GeekGirlFriend

    BTW, these are very challenging languages... complex syntax with merciless checks and cryptic error messages, indeterministic semantic and a lot of unexpected behaviour.



    hello world in GirlFriend:
    note: MALE starts a comment until the keyword FEMALE returns it to code
    MALE hello world program
    FEMALE
    echo "Hello World" (please (with-sugar-on-top (beg (plead (YES)))))

    gives a 35% of printing "Hello World", a 25% chance of telling you to get off the computer, a 5% chance of dumping a core and crying, and a 25% of dumping a core and getting angry.  the last 10% is undefined. 
    also, I think it would be against the concept of the language to write library functions.  especially since the language responds differently on every machine.



  • @tster said:



    hello world in GirlFriend:
    note: MALE starts a comment until the keyword FEMALE returns it to code
    MALE hello world program
    FEMALE
    echo "Hello World" (please (with-sugar-on-top (beg (plead (YES)))))

    gives a 35% of printing "Hello World", a 25% chance of telling you to get off the computer, a 5% chance of dumping a core and crying, and a 25% of dumping a core and getting angry.  the last 10% is undefined. 
    also, I think it would be against the concept of the language to write library functions.  especially since the language responds differently on every machine.


    Warning: Never run this program on a computer that has access to you online banking account.



  • I would produce a programming language based on Chuck Norris, it would be called Chuck++. Basically to write a program in Chuck++ you wouldn't have to write anything, you just stare at the CPU until it carries out the instructions you want it to carry out. If you come across any bugs you just roundhouse kick them in the face.



  • @R.Flowers said:

    I think a really hip-sounding name for a program language would be Spank. Is it an acronym? I'm not

    ...

    Shaft


    The IDEs for these would have sound effects, right?



  • <FONT face=Tahoma>Foobar, IMO, sounds like a good name since it appears to almost any sample code from a programming language i've seen.

    And because of it's popularity to every other PLs, the Foobar language can interpret other PL's syntax too.

    <FONT face="Times New Roman">@ammoQ said:

    @tster said:


    hello world in GirlFriend:
    note: MALE starts a comment until the keyword FEMALE returns it to code
    MALE hello world program
    FEMALE
    echo "Hello World" (please (with-sugar-on-top (beg (plead (YES)))))

    gives a 35% of printing "Hello World", a 25% chance of telling you to get off the computer, a 5% chance of dumping a core and crying, and a 25% of dumping a core and getting angry.  the last 10% is undefined. 
    also, I think it would be against the concept of the language to write library functions.  especially since the language responds differently on every machine.


    Warning: Never run this program on a computer that has access to you online banking account.
    </FONT>
    The GirlFriend language might further decrease the 35% chance of executing correctly when other GirlFriend programs are present in the same machine.



    </FONT>



  • @ammoQ said:

    @Oscar L said:

     So my creative challenge to you is to think of a class of names and come up with some good examples that would be attractive to the geek crowd.



    Let's try something exotic, something they already have heard of, but never seen in real life:

    Girl
    GirlFriend
    GeekGirlFriend

    BTW, these are very challenging languages... complex syntax with merciless checks and cryptic error messages, indeterministic semantic and a lot of unexpected behaviour.




    I queried the possibility of executing two versions concurrently and got bugchecked so hard it took me a week to come back online.



  • @HitScan said:


    I queried the possibility of executing two versions concurrently and got bugchecked so hard it took me a week to come back online.


    It can be done, but you need sophisticated virtualisation technologie to do it, since this languages want exclusive access to many system resources.
    BTW, they are not threadsafe; in fact, they are not safe at all.



  • I started on my own progamming language, Firth, but I got stuck on reverse Scottish notation.



  • name: Despair
    language itself isn't remarkable, the compiler is: Compilation uses a number of random variables, which often result in completely random miscompiles. The compiler also comes with a --desperate option, that causes it to continuously call itself, while making changes to the code, until a 0 exit status is returned.

    it has been postulated that early versions of windows were written in Despair.



  • @AI0867 said:


    it has been postulated that early versions of windows were written in Despair.


    Are you sure? I thought early versions of Windows caused Despair. Actually, later versions too.



  • @RyuO said:

    I started on my own progamming language, Firth, but I got stuck on reverse Scottish notation.


    Is that the language that has variable names like "<font color="#006400" face="Courier New">mcEntrydate</font>","<font color="#006400" face="Courier New">macInternalReg</font>", and "<font color="#006400" face="Courier New">oCounter</font>"?



  • @R.Flowers said:

    I think a really hip-sounding name for a program language would be Spank. Is it an acronym? I'm not sure yet.

    Superiour Programming And Nullifying Kallidron (sp?)



  • Does anyone here program in Klingon?



  • @R.Flowers said:

    I think a really hip-sounding name for a program language would be Spank.

    No doubt!

    @R.Flowers said:

    Too 'cheesy?' How about languages derived from fictional detectives?

    • Holmes

    Maybe it's just me, but I don't think of detectives when I hear of a Mr. Holmes!



  • @seymore15074 said:


    Maybe it's just me, but I don't think of detectives when I hear of a Mr. Holmes!


    Are you sure? He was quite the dick, though not a private one.

    I guess you have never heard of the 1960's British mystery series, "The Adventures of Sir Ronald Jeremy?"



  • @CPound said:

    Does anyone here program in Klingon?

    I have, but the keyboard seldom survives.



  • How about a language based around the HeMan establishment.  Different characters could represent the different tools and files that go into the environment.

    I had to look up a list of classic characters for a refresher, since it's been a while:

    Your source code files are .adam files, after He-Man's alter ego, Prince Adam

    Compiled files are .heman files if the language is interpreted, of course.

    BattleCat is the web application framework(that's en vogue, after all)

    GreySkull is the IDE(compiling produces the appropriate quote)

    Skeletor is the debugger.

    You get the picture.

     

    How about one based on the Ninja Turtles?



  • @Oscar L said:

    How about a language based around the HeMan establishment.  Different characters could represent the different tools and files that go into the environment.

    I had to look up a list of classic characters for a refresher, since it's been a while:

    Your source code files are .adam files, after He-Man's alter ego, Prince Adam

    Compiled files are .heman files if the language is interpreted, of course.

    BattleCat is the web application framework(that's en vogue, after all)

    GreySkull is the IDE(compiling produces the appropriate quote)

    Skeletor is the debugger.

    You get the picture.

     

    How about one based on the Ninja Turtles?


    Somehow that got me thinking of a language based on the Iliad:
    • .ach is the source code and .patr the include files
    • object code would be, uh, .bri?
    • compiled code is .ody, on the grounds that it does something useful
    • Homer is the compiler, naturally
    • Helen is the VM, if it can launch a thousand processes
    • Hector would be the debugger
    • Cassandra is the unit test framework
    • Ajax could be whatever it is in the XML world, I guess
    • Nestor is the code documentation tool
    Of course, to be a real language it must have a scripting knock off, so Iliadscript looks like:
    μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
    οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν



  • @RyuO said:

    @Oscar L said:

    How about a language based around the HeMan establishment.  Different characters could represent the different tools and files that go into the environment.

    I had to look up a list of classic characters for a refresher, since it's been a while:

    Your source code files are .adam files, after He-Man's alter ego, Prince Adam

    Compiled files are .heman files if the language is interpreted, of course.

    BattleCat is the web application framework(that's en vogue, after all)

    GreySkull is the IDE(compiling produces the appropriate quote)

    Skeletor is the debugger.

    You get the picture.

     

    How about one based on the Ninja Turtles?


    Somehow that got me thinking of a language based on the Iliad:
    • .ach is the source code and .patr the include files
    • object code would be, uh, .bri?
    • compiled code is .ody, on the grounds that it does something useful
    • Homer is the compiler, naturally
    • Helen is the VM, if it can launch a thousand processes
    • Hector would be the debugger
    • Cassandra is the unit test framework
    • Ajax could be whatever it is in the XML world, I guess
    • Nestor is the code documentation tool
    Of course, to be a real language it must have a scripting knock off, so Iliadscript looks like:
    μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
    οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν


    In English:

    The sun stretched its golden fingers across the variable "A".  "A" rose with shining shield to do battle against "B".  "B" fell in rattling armor as "A" vanquished "B", adding to his coffers the plundered armor and weapons of "B".  "A" returned his own armor and the plunder of "B" to his commander.



  • @Oscar L said:

    @RyuO said:
    @Oscar L said:

    How about a language based around the HeMan establishment.  Different characters could represent the different tools and files that go into the environment.

    I had to look up a list of classic characters for a refresher, since it's been a while:

    Your source code files are .adam files, after He-Man's alter ego, Prince Adam

    Compiled files are .heman files if the language is interpreted, of course.

    BattleCat is the web application framework(that's en vogue, after all)

    GreySkull is the IDE(compiling produces the appropriate quote)

    Skeletor is the debugger.

    You get the picture.

     

    How about one based on the Ninja Turtles?


    Somehow that got me thinking of a language based on the Iliad:
    • .ach is the source code and .patr the include files
    • object code would be, uh, .bri?
    • compiled code is .ody, on the grounds that it does something useful
    • Homer is the compiler, naturally
    • Helen is the VM, if it can launch a thousand processes
    • Hector would be the debugger
    • Cassandra is the unit test framework
    • Ajax could be whatever it is in the XML world, I guess
    • Nestor is the code documentation tool
    Of course, to be a real language it must have a scripting knock off, so Iliadscript looks like:
    μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
    οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν


    In English:

    The sun stretched its golden fingers across the variable "A".  "A" rose with shining shield to do battle against "B".  "B" fell in rattling armor as "A" vanquished "B", adding to his coffers the plundered armor and weapons of "B".  "A" returned his own armor and the plunder of "B" to his commander.


    My greek is weak, but I think it says:
    • Parse, goddess, the code of user the son of root,
    • the terrible code that sent numberless errors to the programmer



  • @RyuO said:

    @Oscar L said:
    @RyuO said:
    @Oscar L said:

    How about a language based around the HeMan establishment.  Different characters could represent the different tools and files that go into the environment.

    I had to look up a list of classic characters for a refresher, since it's been a while:

    Your source code files are .adam files, after He-Man's alter ego, Prince Adam

    Compiled files are .heman files if the language is interpreted, of course.

    BattleCat is the web application framework(that's en vogue, after all)

    GreySkull is the IDE(compiling produces the appropriate quote)

    Skeletor is the debugger.

    You get the picture.

     

    How about one based on the Ninja Turtles?


    Somehow that got me thinking of a language based on the Iliad:
    • .ach is the source code and .patr the include files
    • object code would be, uh, .bri?
    • compiled code is .ody, on the grounds that it does something useful
    • Homer is the compiler, naturally
    • Helen is the VM, if it can launch a thousand processes
    • Hector would be the debugger
    • Cassandra is the unit test framework
    • Ajax could be whatever it is in the XML world, I guess
    • Nestor is the code documentation tool
    Of course, to be a real language it must have a scripting knock off, so Iliadscript looks like:
    μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
    οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκεν


    In English:

    The sun stretched its golden fingers across the variable "A".  "A" rose with shining shield to do battle against "B".  "B" fell in rattling armor as "A" vanquished "B", adding to his coffers the plundered armor and weapons of "B".  "A" returned his own armor and the plunder of "B" to his commander.


    My greek is weak, but I think it says:
    • Parse, goddess, the code of user the son of root,
    • the terrible code that sent numberless errors to the programmer


    Your Greek may be weak, and it may not be weak, but given a week (plus many more weeks), all of this Greek, both weak Greek and strong, is still Greek to me.  I can't follow along.

    Which makes me think that a programming language forcing a Seuss style prose might be a lot of fun to use.

     

    How about one forcing short functions by dictating that all functions conform to Haiku rules?  What counts as a reference to the seasons is up for grabs, but here's my try:

    A is B but chill

    until C has been added

    before returning

    (chill meaning both "wait" and implying the chill of Winter)



  • Something based on i-Ching might be cool.

    Especially since i-Ching hexagrams are like 6-bit 'bytes'.

    An assembly-like language, perhaps.



  • @dhromed said:

    Something based on i-Ching might be cool.

    Especially since i-Ching hexagrams are like 6-bit 'bytes'.

    An assembly-like language, perhaps.

    I had to look it up on Sacred Texts, so there's the link for anyone who's interested.

    It sounds like we could disassemble any current executable and try to interpret it.  Maybe you could use IChing symbols for a binary editor?



  • @R.Flowers said:

    I think a really hip-sounding name for a program language would be Spank. Is it an acronym? I'm not sure yet.

    How about variations on cheeses?

    • C<FONT color=#ffa500>#</FONT>EDDAR
    • Feta (really, good as it is)
    • Swish ( = Swiss)
    • Brie

    Too 'cheesy?' How about languages derived from fictional detectives?

    • Holmes
    • Marple
    • Hercule and/or Poirot
    • Hammer
    • Magnum (I'm really starting to like these)
    and of course
    • Shaft


    Come on.... you're missing the obvious.....

    DaVinci ( code )



  • @Oscar L said:

    Programming languages have boring names these days.

    ...

    So my creative challenge to you is to think of a class of names and
    come up with some good examples that would be attractive to the geek
    crowd.

    Just bump it up a notch--the general proposal is a meta-class of programming language names.  You can take this anywhere; but I've come up with some examples here to get you started.

    The meta-class I'm thinking of is something along the lines of memetic engineering, with a goal of just generally messing with people.  We could call the meta-category, or any programming language with such a name, Eris-worthy.

    Example categories that fit this meta-class of names follow:

    Generic name:

    • Program
    • Computer
    • Machine
    • Language
    • Script
    • Code
    Such languages would have interesting effects on job postings and resumes.  Ideally, a Silver Bullet language should have such a worthy name.

    Standard name:

    • ANSI
    • ISO
    • RFC

    ...if you intend to come up with a standard.  One note,
    however--if anyone does this, I know it's easy enough to submit an RFC
    for the ISO language,
    but it honestly would be more fulfilling if there was an ISO standard
    for the RFC programming language.


    Homage to favorite Format:

    • CDT
    • XML
    • Zip

    ...of course, the syntax of the language should have nothing to do with
    the format it's named after.  This is just for general confusion.


    Eris-Worthy Litigation Programming:
    • GPL
    • FOSS
    • Proprietary
    • Copyrighted
    • Party
    • Licensee
    Because, let's face it, legal documents aren't as confusing as they could be.  Such documents would read a lot better if we added terms to contracts such as Licensee software.

    Your favorite web filter:

    • Porn
    • Warez
    • BDSM
    Scenario:  You're an experienced warez programmer (perfectly legal--that's just what the language is called), and you search behind your corporate intranet for sample code snippets.  Let's just make this a bit more challenging.

    Correct the question:

    • YFPL
    • Best
    • Fastest
    • Agood
    Pick the language name that suits the question that most irritates you.  (I'll leave this partially unexplained as a mini-puzzle).


  • @yy2bggggs said:

    Just bump it up a notch--the general proposal is a meta-class of programming language names.  You can take this anywhere; but I've come up with some examples here to get you started.

    The meta-class I'm thinking of is something along the lines of memetic engineering, with a goal of just generally messing with people.  We could call the meta-category, or any programming language with such a name, Eris-worthy.

    named so as to be difficult to find using a search engine:

    The

    IT

    a

    and

    +

    .

    one



  • In the spirit of MS....
    X# (ok this was the precursor name to LinQ or XAML, I forget)
    Y#
    Z#



  • Names that might look funny on a job posting

    • Proficiency in Proficiency preferred
    • Experience with Without required
    • Experience with Jackhammers required
    • Familiarity with Something a plus
    • Looking for sharp Land developers to lead a small team...
    • 5+ years in Prison preferred
    • Min. 7 years in Pergatory required
    • Do you have experience as a Mercenary programmer?
    • Are you a motivated Backstabbing developer?
    • Looking for an Exceptional developer.  No prior experience requied.

     



  • @Oscar L said:

    Names that might look funny on a job posting



      *lol* good idea.

      We are looking for a Lazy programmer. Experience with Clumsiness and Donkeywork a plus. Applicants will have to support our Decayed programs.


    • @Oscar L said:

      Names that might look funny on a job posting

      • Proficiency in Proficiency preferred
      • Experience with Without required
      • Experience with Jackhammers required
      • Familiarity with Something a plus
      • Looking for sharp Land developers to lead a small team...
      • 5+ years in Prison preferred
      • Min. 7 years in Pergatory required
      • Do you have experience as a Mercenary programmer?
      • Are you a motivated Backstabbing developer?
      • Looking for an Exceptional developer.  No prior experience requied.

       


      <FONT face=Tahoma>Nice!

      "Looking for an experienced developer. With No background is a plus."



      </FONT>


    • @Oscar L said:

      Names that might look funny on a job posting

      • Proficiency in Proficiency preferred
      • Experience with Without required
      • Experience with Jackhammers required
      • Familiarity with Something a plus
      • Looking for sharp Land developers to lead a small team...
      • 5+ years in Prison preferred
      • Min. 7 years in Pergatory required
      • Do you have experience as a Mercenary programmer?
      • Are you a motivated Backstabbing developer?
      • Looking for an Exceptional developer.  No prior experience requied.

       



      Let's not forget a certification:

      C.L.U.E = Certified Language Enhancement User (or something)...
      • Looking for someone with a CLUE.


    • This discussion mentioned prefixing variable names with dollar signs in Perl, and it reminded me how I might like a language that organized code more like a book into sentences instead of lines, paragraphs instead of methods, sections instead of classes, etc.

      I think I'd like to call it "Prosaica"*.  I'm shooting for the former of these two definitions, but I have a feeling a lot of people would like to label it as the latter.

       

      *If I could get "P-Dawg" or something like that to catch on as a nickname, that'd be okay, too.


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