Lesser known programming languages
The lesser known programming languages are a set of joke languages first described in an 1982 article by California humorist John Unger Zussman[1], reprinted with additions in a 1983 article[2] and expanded by Doug Bohrer & Ted A. Bear in a later article.[3] They have been reposted many times on forums like Usenet.[4]
Sources
There are three main sources: one original primary source and two successive ripoffs which heavily plagiarize it. The sources are distinguished by the list of better-known programming languages at the start of each source, which the plagiarists changed in vain:
- "BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL…" is from Zussman, 1982.
- "PASCAL, FORTRAN, COBOL…" is from Pi Mu Journal, 1983.
- "APL, BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, PASCAL, RPG…" is from Bohrer & Bear.
It is not clear when Bohrer & Bear wrote, but it cannot be later than 2000. It is not quite clear whether Bohrer & Bear are real people; they could also be pen names which pun on "dug bore" and "teddy bear".
Language list
- SIMPLE (Zussman, 1982)
- SLOBOL (Zussman, 1982)
- COCAINE (Zussman, 1982)
- VALGOL (Zussman, 1982)
- LAIDBACK (Zussman, 1982)
- SARTRE (Zussman, 1982), misspelled as "SARTE" in Bohrer & Bear
- FIFTH (Zussman, 1982)
- C- (Zussman, 1982)
- LITHP (Zussman, 1982)
- DOGO (Zussman, 1982)
- FOCUSALL (1983)
- PINBOL (1983)
- FASTBOL (1983)
- QUICKIE (1983)
- GERITOL (1983)
- REAGAN (Bohrer & Bear)
- DOUBLESPEAK (Bohrer & Bear)
- RENE (Bohrer & Bear)
References
- ↑ J. U. Zussman, 1982. LAIDBACK with (a) FIFTH. InfoWorld, October 4, 1982. p32-33. https://books.google.com/books?id=CTAEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover
- ↑ Author unknown. Little Known Computer Languages. Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, Volume 7, Number 9, 1983 (index). https://archive.org/details/sim_pi-mu-epsilon-journal_1979-1984_7_index https://web.archive.org/web/20011006135013/http://www.thalia.org/computer.html
- ↑ D. Bohrer & T. A. Bear. Languages not in the Commercial Languages SIG or the Languages and Tools SIG. https://www.cs.earlham.edu/~skylar/humor/Unix/new.comp.lang.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20201202223314/https://danflood.com/cshumour/languages-not-in-the-computer-language-sig/ https://www.elsop.com/wrc/humor/not_coml.htm https://oldnewjokes.com/new-languages/ https://sucs.org/~cmckenna/humour/computer/other.html
- ↑ T., 2004. Lesser known programming languages. Usenet group alt.books.m-lackey. https://usenetarchives.com/view.php?id=alt.books.m-lackey&mid=PHBvZ2IwMGhmMXF0cGRqaXA1NjQ4OWloOWJmcTJlb2w1MDZANGF4LmNvbT4M