Acrostic
Acrostic is a stack-based esoteric programming language written by User:Mercerenies, designed to have the visual appearance of a crossword puzzle.
Overview
Below is a brief overview of Acrostic. A more in-depth description of the language's semantics can be found on the official wiki.
Acrostic code occupies a two-dimensional grid. The instructions are specific words, which intersect at specific letters as they might in a simple crossword puzzle. Instructions can be placed either horizontally or vertically.
There are two stacks available to the programmer: the value stack and the storage stack. Most instructions operate on the value stack, and the storage stack is used, as the name implies, to store values for later use.
Instructions typically have several words associated with them, so that you can choose whichever is most agreeable with the words around it in the crossword.
Every program begins with a starting word, such as START,
BEGIN, etc. For instance, your program could begin at
B E G I N
or
BEGIN
The program starts by "executing" the starting word from start to
finish. Then, starting at the back of the word, it looks for another
word to execute and performs that one. For instance, what follows is a
simple program that pushes the literal number 90 to the
value stack.
B E G I NINETY
The word BEGIN executes, then the word
NINETY executes. We could have also written this as
B E G NINETY N
and it will have the same behavior. The interpreter will execute
BEGIN. When it fails to find a new word at "N", it will
backtrack through the word BEGIN looking for a new word
to execute. Note, in particular, that the interpreter will always
alternate between horizontal and vertical words.
Most instructions in Acrostic have a backward form as well. If the
word is executed from back-to-front instead of front-to-back, it will
have a different effect. For numerical literal words, this will push
the negative of the word to the stack. So the following will push
15 to the stack.
B E G FIFTEEN N
While the following will push -15 to the stack.
B
E
G
I
FIFTEEN
An Acrostic program terminates when it runs the starting word backwards. This means your program must end up back at the starting word; you are not permitted to have multiple starting words.
Sample Programs
Infinite Loop
A simple infinite loop. Hangs indefinitely.
BEGINNING
O
NOTHING
H U
I L
NULL
G
Truth-machine
Prints 0 once if the number 0 is input, and 1 infinitely many times if the number 1 is input.
N
CONTINGENCIES
T C
H N A
I R O N
COMMENCE NOTHINGNESS
G A H E
DUPLICATED
N
G
Hello World
Print "Hello World!" to stdout and then exit.
P
R
NOTHING
U N
M T
D B I
F WAITED NOTHING
NILS I F R G U
N E S NOTHINGNESS V F N
V I V U P O ONE D I
NOTHINGNESS E B U T I R R N
N I H N N TEXTUALLY HUNDRED EIGHT
VOID I TWO R I D E
T N Y TEXTUALLY N G
H G H C G E
I I T DIFFER
NOTHING N U
G O G P
T I L
H NOTHINGNESS I P
I U P C R P
N L U ASCII R
NOTHING TEXTUALLY WAIT T NOTHING
U E I E T N H
L C X V T D TEXTUALLY
L T EMPTY O H N
VOIDS H N I O D
N INPUTTED D U R
P R U EIGHT ELEVEN
U T R HUNDRED D O
T STANDBY Y O T
T H T V H
E R H NOTHING T I
DIFFERENCE I I O DIFFERENCE
E NOTHING VOID T X G
G U O H T
L I I U
DISPLAY VOID N DISCARD
I O NOTHING E L
F I H O P L
V F D I T O Y
FOURTEEN NOTHINGNESS R H S
I I R W T I I
HUNDRED WITHOUT Y INPUT
P A G
U I N I
STORING N INPUT
P O N
U THREE
T H T
T I Y
DIFFERENCE
N G
G
Factorial
Takes an integer input on standard in and prints its factorial to standard out.
BEGINNING N
U U O
L M T N
L E H O
NULLS R NOTHING NOTHINGNESS
U SINGULAR U N H O
L C E L G I T
L A A L NOTHINGNESS H
NULLS L D VOIDS E G I
O I O S R N
T NOTHINGNESS I S E G
H G O D S N
I NOTHINGNESS NOTHINGNESS
NOTHING N D H E S
G O O U I VOID S
T T P N O
H H L G I
I INPUTTING NOTHINGNESS DIFFERS
N N C E M I
G G BRANCHES P N
NOTHINGNESS T S T S WITHDRAWING
E E E DUPLICATING I L
S S N O V E
S S E R I
S I D
S NOTHINGNESS
G D