Kayak

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Kayak is a reversible esoteric programming language designed and implemented in 2002 by Ben Rudiak-Gould. Any procedure can be run forwards or backwards. Running a procedure backwards is equivalent to reversing its characters.

All many-to-one operations, like sorting, must be implemented by moving the unneeded information into a bit bucket supplied by the system.

Language details

Kayak has two data types: infinite stacks of bits (of which programs can have an arbitrary number) and single-bit temporary registers (only one of which is accessible within a given scope). There are nine symbols recognized in Kayak:

< … > Encloses a comment. May be nested.
[ … ] Conditionally executes the enclosed code.
( … ) Encloses the arguments to a procedure.
{ … } Encloses the body of a procedure.
| Complements the value in the temporary register.

An identifier can be any string that does not include the above symbols and does not include whitespace.

Procedures

Programs are specified as lists of procedures. A procedure definition takes the form

name1(arg1|arg2) { body } (arg3|arg4)name2

Multiple procedures can have the same name1 as long as they have a different name2, or vice versa. Both names are always specified when calling a procedure.

A procedure can take any number of arguments, named both at the start of the definition and at the end. When the procedure starts, the argument names at the entry point (which can be either the beginning or the end) are bound to the arguments supplied, and when the procedure ends, the variables listed at the exit point are updated. The following procedure, for example, swaps its arguments:

swap(a|b) {} (b|a)paws

The commands are:

Command Description
identifier If there is no value in the temporary register, pop the top value off the local variable identifier, placing it in the temporary register. If there is a value in the temporary register, remove it and push it onto the local variable identifier. Example: foo bar moves one bit from stack foo to stack bar.
| Complement the value in the temporary register. This cannot be used when the temporary register has no value. (Whether the temporary register has a value can be checked at compile time.)
[ code ] If the temporary register has a 1 in it, run the code; otherwise, skip it. The code is given its own temporary register, initially empty. This cannot be used when the temporary register is empty. In addition, code must result in an empty temporary register when the structure is exited.
name1(arg1|arg2)name2 Runs the procedure with the names name1 and name2, passing it the arguments arg1 and arg2. The arguments are local variables, and they should be modified by the procedure called, since this is the only way for a procedure to have any effect. Recursive calls are legal and are the only looping mechanism. The procedure name can be written in reverse to call the procedure backwards, relative to the current execution direction. Procedures with palindromic names cannot be called in reverse, so it's a good idea to only give palindromic names to self-inverse procedures.

All local variables in a procedure, except those passed in by arguments, are initialized to contain infinite zeroes. They should also contain only zeroes when the procedure finishes.

The main procedure

The main procedure, which has an empty name, is the procedure run when the program starts. It can be defined to take either one or two arguments. If it takes one argument, the argument is the program's input on entry and the program's output on exit. If it takes two arguments, the argument closest to the procedure body on each side is input or output, and the other argument is the bit bucket. The bit bucket contains unpredictable bits on entry and may contain anything on exit.

Each byte of input or output is encoded as nine bits. The bit closest to the top of the stack is 1, indicating that there is, in fact, another byte of input or output on the stack; the next eight bits are the byte, with the least significant bit at the top.

External resources