Does Esoteric fit the Bill?

I started reading Mary Shaw’s ‘Myths and mythconceptions: what does it mean to be a programming language, anyhow?’ ¹, a text dwelling on the ideals of programming language design and the reality of such a thing being applied in every day software development. Among other concepts, she throws up ‘vernacular software developer’ to highlight that the majority of people programming don’t have a foundational understanding of the programming language, but use what works and are often in a mode of exploration through programming, instead of having clear specifications beforehand.

It is especially important for these tools to support programmers who are developing the software as a way of understanding their problems or the ramifications of their decisions—people who are using software to work toward a specification rather than from one. Programming in this exploratory mode involves getting feedback on whether initial ideas accurately capture the intention, then refining and extending the result to achieve a satisfactory program by progressive approximations while refining their understanding of their real intention. Schön [1984] describes this design process as “a conversation with the materials of the situation.” Many professional programmers work this way too, of course, but it’s especially prevalent in vernacular programming. (Shaw, 2022, p. 12)

And so we meet the vernacular again, once more.

I know that esoteric programming languages is an established category, but I start to become unhappy with the esoteric part. There is part of the concept that works well, but there is also part of it that pertains to a certain self-celebration. As in, we’re really edgy. It’s a fun challenge to create extremely minimalistic programming language, but I’m not comfortable with a culture that then celebrates it for years as what kind of achievement, and talks about ‘Brainfuck’ as if it would be punk. I’m rather interested in the why’s and means behind kiki, the community that arose from uxn, or the joy of thinking through fungus. Esoteric has this closing quality to it and I just don’t see that in these projects. These are rather about an open and honest exploration of computation as a means of expression, filled with the poetical and ethical.

Another round of researching papers got me three new additions that I’d love to consume before deciding on how to go on methodologically.

• Dhulipalla, Koundinya. ‘Vernacular Computing as Encoded Aesthetics for Decolonial Code Intervention’. AI & SOCIETY 41, no. 3 (2026): 2683–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02689-w.
• Melek, Yasemin, and Jessica Anderson. ‘Liveness and Materiality in Esoteric Programming’. Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Creativity and Cognition (New York, NY, USA), C&C ’26, 13 July 2026, 1458–63. https://doi.org/10.1145/3803784.3816844.
• Singer, Jeremy, and Steve Draper. ‘Let’s Take Esoteric Programming Languages Seriously’. Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software, 9 October 2025, 213–26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3759429.3762632.

Although all of them focus on the ‘esoteric’ I love how they incorporate the vernacular and material into their discourses. I hope I find the time to study them next week, and see where that brings me.

We’ve held the second ~routine yesterday and had two guests, which were cherished. One person has never touched AI yet, being disgusted that it is forced (encouraged to use) on them at work. We celebrated that fact. We talked about the liberating qualities of Linux, ate dinner together, and programmed some. Befunge was investigated, someone handcrafted a beautiful website without JavaScript. Later talks turned towards communal server infrastructures, with a dash of #solarpunk and #permacomputing.