Ask HN: What is the most niche programming language that is still written?

9 points by wking 2 years ago | 13 comments
I would love to hear about the programming languages that I have never heard about. I don't mean Assembly or anything that is low-level, but mainstream. Even better if you have an example!
  • 082349872349872 2 years ago
    I would not be surprised if TAL is still used for https://www.hpe.com/us/en/servers/nonstop.html boxen.

    Similarly, https://www.unisys.com/client-education/clearpath-forward-li... probably still uses its bespoke languages ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_Large_Systems#ALGOL ) in places.

    • wking 2 years ago
      I wonder how much people who still write these languages are paid? I feel like it is one extreme or the other. You are rolling in it or you just don't know any better.
      • 082349872349872 2 years ago
        My WAG is that they might have handcuffs of 2x mainstream, but aren't "rolling in it".

        Unlike K (or the APLs in general), all these languages are pidgin algol, hence not that difficult to train.

    • 082349872349872 2 years ago
      Do you have any interest in academic languages?

      After a half a century or so without, BCPL recently got floats (for a flight simulator): https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/BCPL.html

      I prefer the author's MCPL: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mr10/MCPL.html but have no idea if anyone is currently using it.

      [Edit: looks like Martin backported pattern matching from MCPL into BCPL ca. Oct 2022, so that's recent signs of life for both strains!]

      • fhaldridge7 2 years ago
        Check "advent of code" solutions. Some of the people invent their own programming languages to solve problems.
        • tothrowaway 2 years ago
          JScript is Microsoft's JavaScript that can run server side. I guess it was a thing in the late 90s and early 00s. The "Click Commerce" web CMS/framework was largely written in it. They pivoted from commerce to medical research, and the software is still being used by dozens of institutions.
          • _448 2 years ago
            Pike (https://pike.lysator.liu.se)
            • rurban 2 years ago
              Rexx at IBM, but I guess there are several such internal langs used in similar obscure companies.
              • simonblack 2 years ago
                Z80 assembly.
                • 2snakes 2 years ago
                  Brainfuck lol
                  • amalgamated_inc 2 years ago
                    K
                    • wking 2 years ago
                      Whoa, I work at Crunchy Data. We focus on Postgres, but this K and KX family is wild. Reading about how it is used for Formula 1 data analytics