There is no shortage of difficult programming languages. But difficult and strange? That's a whole different category. A couple of months ago we explored Befunge, a language created in 1993 whose code runs in two dimensions following different directions, and it's a real nightmare to compile. However, today we'd like to introduce HeartForth, a variant of Forth created by Neil Kandalgaonkar in early 2015. What is it based on? Basically, it replaced Forth's main instructions with their emoji equivalents, turning every line of code into a festival of colors.
The Fun Side of Programming
Mastering a programming language completely is a huge challenge. It demands a lot of time, effort, errors and experiments. A single incorrect instruction in a lost line of code can cause a wide range of problems, and let's not even mention the ever-present mental fatigue. But there comes a point when every programmer wants to have a little fun, and ends up doing things like creating a "fantasy" programming language. We still remember Whitespace, whose code is transparent, and only uses spaces or tabs. An even more recent example is Rockstar, with a structure that resembles an average rock song. What else could be used as an element or substitute? Programmer Neil Kandalgaonkar came up with implementing emojis, and the result is HeartForth.
How HeartForth Speaks in Emojis
The code... makes much more sense than it appears. At the bottom of the official page we can access the complete glossary with its direct equivalents in Forth. Drop is a broken heart, Rot is a heart pierced by an arrow, hands in supplication symbolize =, speakers and satellites for greater than or less than, and Begin uses the index finger pointing to the right, in a kind of "Engage" in the style of Star Trek: TNG. One that does not appear on the list but does appear in the example code is Factorial, identified with an explosion.
Why Use HeartForth?
Its creator highlights four advantages: HeartForth is extremely compact (so much so that a complex program could fit in a tweet), maintains a clear separation between program and data, is agnostic regarding spaces, and has complete international support, since most languages favor the English language, but the universal profile of emojis breaks that. Now, the question is: Who is going to start writing code in HeartForth?
