Esolang Wiki: weird website review & sites like it

The Esolang Wiki documents esoteric programming languages: languages designed to be weird, hard, minimal or funny rather than useful. Browse and you find languages made of whitespace, languages that look like cooking recipes, and languages built to be as difficult as possible to write.

Each entry explains the rules and often includes a sample program, so you can see how a joke becomes a working language. It is peak programmer humor, and it is also real computer science, since many of these languages test the limits of what a language needs in order to compute.

It is a wiki, so quality and detail vary. It works on phones and desktops and is a rabbit hole for anyone with a taste for the absurd. Related: /site/telehack, /category/internet-culture and /category/useless.

Tips for getting the most out of it

Start from the main page and follow the links that sound funniest.
Look for the sample programs.
Expect uneven detail, since it is a wiki.

Questions about Esolang Wiki

What is the Esolang Wiki?

The Esolang Wiki is a wiki documenting esoteric programming languages, which are designed to be strange, minimal or difficult rather than practical. Plan on plenty of time, since it is a genuine rabbit hole. It works on phones. You can find it at esolangs.org, and we check the link daily.

What is an esoteric programming language?

It is a programming language created as a joke, a puzzle or an experiment, rather than for everyday software. Examples on the wiki include languages made of whitespace or styled as recipes. Plan on plenty of time, since it is a genuine rabbit hole.