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Unusual Programming Paradigms in Esoteric Languages
A tour of models of computation far from ordinary step-by-step code: rewriting, automata, combinators, reversibility and more, and why they still compute.
More Esoteric Languages
Unusual Paradigms
Rewriting, automata, reversibility and other odd ways to compute.
Cellular Automata as Programming Systems
How grids of simple cells that update in lockstep can be treated as programs, with a small worked example and a look at what such systems can compute.
Combinator Languages Like Unlambda
How programs can be built from a handful of combinators with no variables at all, using S, K and I and the esoteric language Unlambda as a guide.
Esoteric Languages Without Control Flow
Looks at language designs that have no separate loop or conditional construct, from one-instruction machines to grids and rule systems, and how they still decide what runs next.
Lambda Calculus Through Esoteric Languages
Explains lambda calculus, where functions are the only thing, with Church numerals and a worked reduction, and how it has shaped odd and minimal languages.
Languages Built on Rewriting Rules
How programs expressed as pattern-replacement rules work, with a hand-traced sorting example, Markov-style algorithms and why rule order matters.
Languages That Read Like Prose
A look at programming languages whose source resembles sentences, recipes or stage plays, why designers make them, and what they teach about readability.
Nondeterministic and Probabilistic Programs
Explains how a step can have more than one outcome, the difference between random and nondeterministic choice, and how esoteric and theoretical systems use both.
Reversible Programming Languages
How languages in which every step can be run backward work, why information loss matters, and what reversible gates and operations look like in practice.
Rule 110 and Computation in Simple Systems
Why a one-dimensional rule with only eight cases is discussed in computability, how the rule works by hand, and what its universality does and does not mean.
The Game of Life as a Computer
How patterns such as gliders, guns and eaters in Conway's Game of Life can act as signals and logic gates, and what that implies about universal computation.
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