INTERCAL

INTERCAL (Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym) is an esoteric programming language created by Don Woods and James M. Lyon, both students at Princeton University, in 1972. It is intended as a parody of the various "high-level" programming languages of the era and is designed to be deliberately different, weird, and difficult to use.

INTERCAL is characterized by its bizarre syntax, confusing instructions, and general lack of orthogonality. It features unusual operators like "mingle" and "select" and requires statements to be acknowledged with "PLEASE" (and sometimes "PLEASE DO," "PLEASE NOTE," or even being denied the request). The program is compiled using the "Compiler", but the source code is "Intercalated". Programs are also considered more polite if they use "PLEASE" frequently, though overuse can result in the compiler rejecting the code as being excessively polite.

Notable aspects of INTERCAL include its use of COME FROM statements, a more obtuse variant of GOTO, and its representation of numbers using "spots" and "tails" instead of the usual binary or decimal formats. The original INTERCAL implementation was on an IBM System/360 mainframe, and its scarcity and complex design have contributed to its enduring status as a tongue-in-cheek oddity in the computing world.

INTERCAL is not intended for practical programming, but rather as a demonstration of the absurdities that can arise in the design of programming languages. It continues to be a source of amusement and fascination for programmers interested in the history and more unconventional aspects of computer science.