Slashdot Mirror
Quadrilingual Crazy Programming
mtve writes: "Have you ever seen source code that is valid on four languages: Perl, C,
Befunge,
and BrainF*ck?
During last Perlgolf
season famous Perl hacker Jérôme
Quelin submit such inconceivable masterpiece and now he published expanded explanation
of his solution. Caution: that text can hurt your mental health. Play
Perlgolf!"
I have enough trouble making my code compile in ONE language, 4 at the same time is a bit much
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
that's just plain crazy. Why would you want to do that?
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
What sort of lunatic wants code that compiles in 4 languages, anyway?
Isn't it bad enough that microsoft creates gigabytes of code bloat, let alone all the geeks who are now going to try multi-lingual code?
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
He should seek professional help. Soon. That's right up there with self-mutilation.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Now this is exactly why I am proud to be a programmer. Screw Picaso and DaVinci, this is what real art is all about.
This presents an interesting dilemma though. What Emacs mode do I use to look at the code??? perl-mode, c-mode, I dunno. Fontifying just complicates it even more.
At any rate, this shit is going up in my cube. If they should this in a frame, I would buy it and hang it in my house.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/chogan/Web/pol yglot
Cobol, Pascal, Fortran, C, Postscript, shellscript, 8086
The more advanced the technology, the more open it is to primitive attack
I used to work as a research assistant at the Artificial Intelligence Projects lab at Carnegie-Mellon University. When it was late at night, and we were all bored, we would try to put together C programs that were illegible but yet would still compile. That was lots of fun, and it had lots of people scratching their heads, all night long.
Apply these same principles to a virus and you'd have a pretty dangerous bit of code.
Meet the White House Whores
tcd004
The whole purpose behind having so many languages is for different specialized needs. There used to be PASCAL for scientists, FORTRAN for mathematicians, BASIC for hobbyists or new programmers... each server a purpose, and was not made to do anything more.
Nowadays, Perl and PHP are almost identical, Obj C, C, and C++ are very similar, Java bears many similarities to Obj C and C++ as well, and most of the new 'Basic' environments like REALBasic and VisualBasic are near clones as well.
All of today's popular coding environments could be condensed to Java, Objective C, Perl, and some form of BASIC. This point is exemplified nicely by the fact that a bit of code can be done to compile in 4 languages... the syntax is already quite close, having so many minor variants is just messy.
The only polyglot archive i am aware of on the whole internet
Everything2 entry on polyglots
It runs/compiles under 7 languages: ANSI COBOL, ISO Pascal, ANSI Fortran, ANSI C, PostScript, Shell Script, and 8086 machine language!!! Check it out, it rocks.
He uses the fact that # is a comment in Perl VERY frequently to use #defines etc that will allow C to act like Perl. Interesting solution, although I question whether the use of such preprocessor directives REALLY counts as making cross-compatible code. Then again, I nitpick the difference between preprocessor and compiler, so...
Well, I guess that is one way to keep people from saying that your implementation isn't portable enough.
Note that, even though this is standard C, gcc won't compile it, complaining about the lack of a "main" function.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
First off, this guy obviously has much better kung-fu than I do...I've never even heard of BrainFuck or Befunge...but I think he kinda cheated on the last two languages. He just hid the code for Brainfuck and Befunge in perl and C comments, so they wouldn't interfere with each other. Now, the perl/C part is really neat, because he used C #defines to translate various Perl characters into C, so the Perl interpreter and C compiler are reading and understanding the exact same code...that's cool. But the B & B code just gets ignored by the Perl interpreter and C compiler because of comments, so this amounts to writing 3 seperate programs (one in BrainFuck, one in Befunge, and one that's bi in C and Perl) and then putting them all in the same file with intstructions as to which compiler/interpreter reads which part, as opposed to writing one piece of code that's meaningful in all 4 languages. I'd call this bilingual, not quadlingual.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Ironically, the article isn't even valid in one language.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Yeah, it's great to have a piece of code that compiles for four languages, but what's the point if you're just using pre-processor and compiler tricks to get the compiler to look at a different section of the same file? In this file, if I change the problem-solving logic slightly, I have to change it in several places. What would be truly cool (and incredibly difficult), in my opinion, would be to completely eliminate redundant logic.
Befunge is,
Holy mackerel! I am in love. I've found the object of my dreams.
Man, just go buy the book you need....all this for a book :)
...on th web, anyhow. All the time we deal with several languages, burying one inside another so they'll make sense as they go through successive levels of parsing.
.');"> For those of you who are counting, that's SIX 'enders' in three syntax languages just to form a simple alert box.
. - English syntax
; - Javascript instruction syntax
For example, every day I write SQL that is buried in PHP libraries which extracts more PHP that in turn has HTML and Javascript in them.
For another example of the crazyness, check this simple example. Now if you look at the source, you'll notice the end part of that A-tag was:
' - Javascript string syntax
) - Javascript function syntax
" - HTML attribute syntax
> - XML (err, HTML, whichever) tag syntax
And that's not even a particularly hairy example. That's just client-side and wetware-side parsing.
Kevin Fox
Four computer languages in one code block, no problem.
But proper use of one human language? Look out!
The correct term is tetralingual, not quadrilingual.
Wow, if I saw that a few years ago, I would've been so scared I would've never touched another programming language again! Slashdot, please think of the children before you post things like that.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
Now if only he could come up with an version that did APL, too.
The correct term is tetralingual, not quadrilingual.
"Quadri" comes from Latin. "Lingual" is from Latin. "Tetra" comes from Greek. In general, a compound will be all-Greek or all-Latin, with the occasional exception such as "homosexual".
Quadrilingual is used in 1,210 pages, whereas tetralingual is used in only 14.
I assume your Game Boy reference alluded to Tetris®. In that case, the existence of Quadra negates any "by default, go with the name of the block game" rule. In other words, you need to lay off the drugs ;-)
Will I retire or break 10K?
When I get into my "programming language learning" mode, when I learn a new procedure in one language, I try to make the same program in at leats 7 others....sure, it sounds lame, but it really sticks in my head..
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Why not just do this instead:
Also, another minor quip: the C program is not valid C in either C89 or C99. It's not valid C89 because it uses '//' for a comment, and it's not valid C99 since it introduces main() without declaring the return type. C89 defaults to int if you don't declare the type (both for functions and variables, which can be fun), whereas this behaviour is undefined in C99. Normally, I don't follow the anal-retentive lingual purists, but I think this situation calls for this.
But yeah, this is pretty cool.
OK, so it actualy prints "hello polyglots", but still, all it does is output a fixed string. Quelin's program does an actual computation, admittedly a relatively minor one.
Moreover, all of polyglot's languages are languages that people have actually used to write real code. I'm not saying they are all reasonable languages, but one can at least semi-plausibly claim that they were written to be useful. Befunge and BrainF*ck are both toy languages written expressly to be perverse in some way (Befunge to be uncompilable, and BrainF*ck to be absurdly minimalist.)
That said, I was disappointed at how separate the languages' code blocks were in Quilen's program. C and perl share most of the same code, but there are three completely separate code blocks and the work is mostly in getting each language to ignore the others' code. It's probably the only way it can be done, but it's really a short quadralingual wrapper around three separate programs, one of which is bilingual.
5 languages...I'll bet they forgot to count C++
But think about what this means for more serious programming.
Imagine a program that runs in C++, MySQL, and Apache. This could be a new era in cross-platform development!
Programmers: please study this closely, and we will finally allow Linux to compete.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I sort of think it's things like this that make slashdot so worth reading. These gems of pure geekness. +5 to /.
I discovered BrainFuck by chance two years ago and immediately got lost in two nights of trying to get my first quine to compile in the interactive JavaScript BF interpreter. For some perverse reason it is fun. It brings out the little boy in me who used to build model airplanes out of toothpicks: Little unimportant things that become something when you stick them together. perhaps this would also be a possible real world language for programming Nanobots, whose processors wouldn't yet cope with a P4 strapped to their backs.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Try to get a website to look the same in every web browser.
That's an impressive feat?
Netscape 4.X = Worst browser ever!
My colleagues at work think *I* am nuts because I refuse to use notepad or Visual Café's builtin-text editor to edit .java source files, preferring instead a much more powerful older DOS-based text editor (TSE). They're gonna suffer a heart attack when they see this.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
#define ARGH argh argh argh
I don't know if there's an official term for it, but I often write a function in one language that writes code for another language - for example, using PHP or Perl to write javascript. I've even gone so far as to use PHP to write a SQL statement which in turn is used to determine what will go in a Javascript function that writes HTML code. The example below is rather pointless, but I have come across real situations where it is beneficial to use that many languages together.
That's three "real" languages and one markup language. And if you think that was crazy, think about this - I just had to write that in HTML in a slashdot posting textbox!
My next goal is to make the javascript write out HTML for parameters in a Java applet. And, the whole PHP page is going to be written by a C program exectuted by a cron job that was set up via a perl script (webmin!) That's eight different languages - perl -> bash (I think) -> C -> PHP -> SQL and Javascript -> HTML -> Java. Sadly, I don't think that's nearly as crazy as the quadrilingual program. I need to learn Brainf*ck.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
If you rename the file to quadlang.c or quadlang.cpp, then open it as c/c++. If you rename it to quadland.cgi, open it as perl, and so on. That's assuming you're going to rename it before sending it to any compiler.
Of course, that's just another problem with multiple languages per source file - figuring precisely how to name the file.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
only it was in human to human language......oh wait we have some that can't understand their own language and those languages which are universal like money and the hand/finger gesture of giving someone the bird.
How may languages is that understood in?
A genetic algorithm might be a great way to produce such examples. You may be able to speed it up by having lists of common language commands to use as mutation material.
/. can set the world record......if there is such a record.
Turn it into a screen-saver ala Seti style, and maybe
Table-ized A.I.
I was happy to solve 1840, even though I immediately recognized the language, because it is poorly specified and there is no interpreter. But that was nothing compared with my teammates, who solved 1183 with nothing but the problem and pure reason.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
He tries to declare an array with a size returned by a function call. In C, array sizes have to be static (that's why C++ has "new" for arrays). He's writing to illegal locations in memory.
I've been working on truly bilingual code for a few years now. Machine code. That will run on both PPC and x86. Now, if only the damn elf header didn't cause one cpu to reject it, even though the binary is valid...
.EXE headers aren't even close. Oh well.
Same with x86 machine code that is clever enough to determine if it's running inside of linux or windows... even though the code itself is valid, the elf vs.
Why is it that Slashdot's editors can't fix the mistakes in the above and many, many other articles before posting? Either they don't notice the errors (in which case they should be sacked and replaced), or it's that important to post the article a minute earlier (highly unlikely), or somehow the original wording is considered "sacred" and Not To Be Changed (stupid if true). Come on here. Does the error rate on the front page have to be so high?
The only reason I'm not blaming the submitter (mtve) as well is because it's possible English is not his first language (or even his second). If it is, shame on him too. We all deserve better.
(Oh yes, for those clueless enough to say "What errors", I threw in the required changes in bold. Also, isn't one Perlgolf link enough?)
czth
... is the name of the language, and I fail to see what it has to do with this article.
More slash, bitches! Everyone loves slash!
did you come up with by yourself or did you rip it from ioccc?
This is practically art. Just reading this guy's solution was amazing, the way he reasoned about each step, and just the IDEA of it. Absolutely unbelievable.
However, I'd like to see more difficult languages. Has anyone done LISP? Has anyone even ATTEMPTED Haskell or ML?
This would be worth a subscription if there was more of it (not more of the same but more in a similar vein of geekiness). REAL geek news! None of that Kayz crap or friking freshmen case mods with melted plastic and neon bulbs. Let them come and stare in awe as the fail to grok the code because the wasted their lives drilling holes in their PC case.
This just shows what coding Perl will do to you.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
check the following page for source code that can be used in many languages...
polyglots list
I wrote a Brainfuck interpreter in PHP a while ago which also includes a short introduction to the language.
By the way, Brainfuck was initially named "Mental Masturbation", but the Author Oliver Müller then stuck to a less offensive name :)
with obsolete warnings that result mainly in confusion and code bloat this is only a good thing.
i'm not going to write my expressions like a+(b*c) so why should i write a&(bc) either?
Go for it. Make sure you are in shape though, nothing sucks more than being unprepared for your initial training it will demotivate you. Trust me, I know, I went to usmc boot camp and I learned the hard way. Now I'm in college and I'm planning to do the Marine Corps PLC program where they actually guarantee you a shot at flight school if you sign up under the aviation option.
-- Begin Code snippit beneath this line ---
-- End Code snippit above this line ---
Try it, it should work. You see, the key to getting it to work for everything out there is to compromise what the program can do.
Fortunately, since the goal was to make the program run in as many languages as possible, I can make the code as minimalistic as possible, too!
By the way, the code I mentioned above is property of myself. This code cannot be used in programs without my expressed permission. Doing so would be a violation of the terms in which I am distributing the above code.
Licensing agreements are available. Contact me for more info.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Poster named Damiam, you are in violation of the terms of my license. You are hereby asked to cease and desist from distributing your code, and will be contacted shortly with a cease and desist letter saying the same message.
If you do not pay royalties to me, I shall strip you of all your Karma, and fart in your general direction. :)
By the way, if you claim prior art, this is not true. I came up with this program back in 1984 when I was banging enter on the keyboard of my Commodore Pet computer and realized that I was programming it without my knowledge.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
News Reporter: So how'd you do it?
Guy: Well, the nanotech was already there. I just wrote a small program in BrainFuck in order to hunt down the virus.
Well, at least censorship would go out the window the same time we cure World Disease.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
This is pretty clever, but it's not that cool; I do similar stuff all the time. I have to mix VBScript and JavaScript and then there is the question of getting stuff to work on different browsers. You can easily call each different browser a new language because they never work the same.
From Brainf*ck The Null Program If a program is a series of instructions, then the null program is a series of zero instructions. The null program has some interesting properties, not the least of which being that it's simultaneously written in many languages and many paradigms...
According to Microsoft, their "Visual Studio" will do 5 languages at the same time !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Also, for your masochistic programming pleasure, you may be interested in the polyglot list and the quine page.
For even more zany programming fun, check out Esoteric topics in Computer Programming. Oh, and my own pathetic attempt at a similar page, Miscreant Programming Languages.
Nathan's blog
so you want it to have read:
"During last Perlgolf season famous Perl hacker Jerome Quelin submit such inconceivable masterpiece and now he published expanded explanation of his solution"
And that got you a +4 insightful? -1 gibberish more like.
doh...thats what it did read...I stand over-caffined and underslept...sorry, maybe I should apply for an editors job.