“A Box, Darkly: Obfuscation, Weird Languages, and Code Esthetics”, 2005-12 ():
The standard idea of code esthetics, when such an idea manifests itself at all, allows for programmers to have elegance and clarity as their standards.
This paper explores programming practices in which other values are at work, showing that the esthetics of code must be enlarged to accommodate them. The two practices considered are obfuscated programming [IOCCC, Obfuscated Perl Contest] and the creation of “weird languages” for coding [INTERCAL, Brainfuck, Shakespeare, Malbolge].
Connections between these two practices, and between these and other mechanical and literary esthetic traditions, are discussed.