6 programming languages that sound fake but aren’t

Programmers tend to use a fairly limited set of programming languages in their everyday work, dictated either by a third party or their own preference. Languages come and go, ebbing and flowing according to what’s in fashion, but we only see a fraction of what’s really available.

The following languages are so niche—or just plain weird—that you may be unaware of their existence or, at the least, not familiar with them. Are they even real, or part of some elaborate practical joke? You decide.

Whitespace: The code’s invisible?

Imagine handing over a blank piece of paper for your next programming assignment, only for your tutor to congratulate you on a job well done. That promise can be fulfilled with Whitespace, a truly ridiculous programming language.

If you don’t like the way Python forces you to indent your code consistently, look away now:

In that screenshot, the program’s source code is selected to clearly distinguish between newlines, tabs, and spaces because those are the only characters that matter in Whitespace. Still, it’s difficult to believe that this is real code, code that can do anything any other language can do, but it is.

Everything in Whitespace depends upon the combination and number of consecutive whitespace characters. So Space, Space means “push the following number onto the stack” while Tab, Space, Space, Line Feed means “multiply the top two numbers on the stack.”

Writing a Whitespace program is incredibly awkward. Not only will you have to deal with a restricted instruction set, but you’ll have to be very careful with your editor to ensure you don’t accidentally auto-format any spaces. Moreover, printed Whitespace code is really tricky to read…

Chef: Are recipes source code now?

If the next meal you were served was created from a recipe that also doubles as source code for a “Hello, World” program, would you really want to eat it? If that recipe was written in Chef, you can proceed, safe in the knowledge that such code should:

not only generate valid output, but be easy to prepare and delicious

That’s one of the design principles of Chef, a language that represents data as ingredients and program statements as a cooking recipe. Examples of the latter include “Take milk from refrigerator” to read input into a variable, and “Mix the 2nd mixing bowl well” to randomise a set of values.

On the surface, Chef programs can look surprisingly similar to something you might find in a cookbook, although a recipe calling for 101 eggs and 111 cups of oil probably shouldn’t be followed at home, even if it does print “Hello World” once you’re done:

LOLCODE is just one big joke, isn’t it?

Any language with the word “LOL” in its name should be treated with a pinch of salt; there’s another Chef program for you. So, LOLCODE clearly demands that you don’t take it too seriously, but is “CAN HAS STDIO?” really workable program code? Yes, with LOLCODE, of course it is.

This language celebrates the lolspeak phenomenon, which gave us LOLcats, “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?,” and countless other early-21st-Century nonsense you’d forgotten all about.

Apart from reusing phrases like “BTW” (to introduce a comment) and the wonderful “KTHXBYE” to terminate a program, LOLCODE utilizes emoticons, the ancient precursor to today’s emoji. The sequence “:)” is not only a smiley face on its side, but also a newline character in LOLCODE.

In keeping with lolspeak, this language revels in misspellings, so you’ll need to be careful not to mix up genuine typos with intentional ones. For example, you can check that a variable named “ANIMAL” has the value “CAT” using the “BOTH SAEM” operator, e.g., BOTH SAEM ANIMAL AN "CAT".

Malbolge: You might as well just mash the keyboard

Malbolge is a long-established esoteric language, so you may recognize the name even if you don’t understand what it means. You’re probably best off not knowing, though; the name is a reference to Dante’s eighth circle of hell, a place you may feel like you’re in if you’re ever asked to write in this language.

Even if you’re familiar with the language, you may not recognize it from some example source code:

(=<`#9]~6ZY327Uv4-QsqpMn&+Ij"'E%e{Ab~w=_:]Kw%o44Uqp0/Q?xNvL:`H%c#DD2^WV>gY;dts76qKJImZkj

This stream of gibberish displays—as you may have guessed—the classic “Hello World” message.

Still, it can’t be that difficult to write once you understand the language, surely? Rest assured: it is. It probably won’t fill you with confidence when you discover that the creator of Malbolge has never written a program in the language themselves.

Most—if not all—Malbolge programs are generated automatically, from code written in much more normal languages. Since Malbolge was purposefully intended to be as difficult to write as possible, this is understandable.

Velato: Whistling is programming?

In Italian, velato means “veiled,” and this language is certainly mysterious and indirect. Any beauty in its name, however, pales in comparison to the beauty of its programs’ source code:

Yes, Velato programs are musical pieces, another example of dual-use source code. The pitch and order of notes express Velato commands, and you can even use multiple tracks for harmonies; the language will ignore any beyond the first.

Perhaps the most enticing aspect of Velato is its 2024 extension, which adds whistle support. Imagine going hands-free, leaning back, and simply whistling a merry tune to program your computer. If you have perfect pitch and an incredibly sharp mind, why not give it a go!

Funciton: Flow charts aren’t really code, are they?

If composing doesn’t strike you as the perfect replacement for writing program code, how about drawing? The Funciton language interprets programs using the Unicode box-drawing characters, so now you can run your ASCII art as well as admire it.

Funciton programs look a bit like circuit diagrams or the kinds of flowchart you might draw when designing a program in the first place:

Unlike most of the languages here, which have minimal instruction sets, the Funciton interpreter has a huge library of functions, covering everything from string joining (ʝ) and sequence filtering (ƒ) to regular expression matching (℞).

Again, you might need to configure your text editor carefully to manage the process of writing Funciton programs. You’ll need a good monospace font to support proper alignment, and you might want to draft your programs on paper first to avoid awkward modifications to the layout.