

Malbolge (programming language) - smikhanov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malbolge

======
Two9A
Esoteric languages are good fun, to be sure, but it's possible to take the
concept a little far.

Brainfuck, for example, is a great example of a minimalist Turing-complete
language, expressed as an esoteric. Befunge and Piet are other good examples
of languages that approach programming from a different angle. Malbolge,
though, is just malevolent and evil for its own sake.

I guess that's the point.

~~~
AndrewDucker
Malbolge would be a challenge to the programming community.

"Here is a language. I bet you can't make it do anything."

Some people clearly like being challenged (see, for instance, the writer of
the 99 bottles of beer algorithm)

~~~
xn13
I really meant it as a joke/proof-of-concept, rather than a challenge per se.
That some people came along later and found it to be an entertaining challenge
was a happy accident.

------
gghh
Here a program that makes a for loop. From the comments: _This program is
something I thought to be impossible_

<http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-malbolge-995.html>

~~~
Patient0
"There is a claim that the '99 bottles of beer' program has been written in
Malbolge. ( See <http://99-bottles-of-beer.ls-la.net/m.html>) The implication
is that the program was doing looping, testing and printing. However, closer
examination shows that the programmer was just doing a printf("") of the
desired result using straight line code. Conceptually this is exactly the same
as the 'hello world' example above."

<http://www.lscheffer.com/malbolge.shtml>

~~~
gghh
Hello Patient0, I didn't follow closely the issue, but reading the comment
[http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-
malbolge-995.html...](http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-
malbolge-995.html#comment_453) I formed the following opinion (speculation,
since no much "subtitles" are provided): somebody wrote the 99-bottle program
in Malbolge, actually doing printf("..."), which isn't that interesting after
all. Then Hisashi Iizawa showed up and did the real thing (looping). Pedro
Gimeno (the commenter I linked) did some analysis, and is convinced that the
program does looping:

 _The program length is 22561 instructions; its output is 11459 bytes long.
The ratio is less than 2 instructions per output byte, clearly insufficient
<i>with Malbolge's limitations</i> for a program which simply outputs constant
text._

This person also rewrote the program in what he calls "the normalized form",
whatever that means (see comment for link to that code).

~~~
Patient0
Ah I see. And he does say "(real loop version)" as a subtitle.

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LukaD
Obviously a Perl inspired Syntax.

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afhof
I like esoteric languages as much as the next geek, but not being Turing-
Complete puts a real limit on the coolness of a language. I think it's much
more salient to say you can do anything in a ridiculous language rather than
limiting it.

~~~
sp332
The only reason it's technically not Turing-complete is because of its limited
memory. The Malbolge Unshackled variant has unlimited memory and is Turing-
complete.

------
syncsynchalt
Ben, if you're out there, hope you're doing well. - Mike and Simone, from
Mines

~~~
xn13
And lo, by the name Malbolge I am summoned.

ben at xn13 dot com if you want to get hold of me.

