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The Hacker Folk Art of Esoteric Coding


Esolangs, or esoteric programming languages, highlight the hidden metaphors and conventions that structure mainstream programming.

The paper proved that an accidental simulation of a computer lurked in the mechanics of the game, written in the partial knowledge of where mines might be. Some stand alone as concepts that don’t need a working interpreter to express their idea: Simply considering the description gives an experience of the language. The language might make use of familiar abstractions, giving us stacks and memory cells, but it might take the form of a Turing Machine lurking in a solitaire game.

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