Coffee break #66. 5 of the strangest and most difficult programming languages. 6 Great Tools to Improve Developer Productivity

5 of the strangest and most difficult programming languages

Source: DZone Even though programming languages ​​themselves are quite complex, they are almost always created with the goal of making it easier to create something useful. But there are also programming languages ​​whose sole purpose is to make your life harder, or perhaps even miserable. Below are some of them: the “worst” and weirdest programming languages.

1. Piet

Piet is a programming language built using colors. This means that you need to create a small bitmap image that will be converted into code that your computer can understand. The code works by evaluating the difference between colors to determine the action to take. Below is an example in Piet of how to display the phrase Hello World.

2.Shakespeare

Shakespeare is a language that aims to make your code look like a Shakespeare play. We can use jump statements such as "let's continue" to move between different lines of code. There are even if statements that use keywords like if so. A typical piece of Shakespeare's programming language looks like this:

3.Whitespace

Everyone who has ever coded has been annoyed by the way others use spaces. I probably spent several days of my life typing code where tabs and indentations made no sense. If spaces annoy you too, then you will hate a space programming language that only uses spaces of varying lengths and types for code. To give you an idea of ​​what this looks like, the code below (which I found online) will print Hello World. In real Whitespace code there would be no S (space), T (tab) or L (linefeed) characters, but they are here so you can understand what's going on:

4. JSF*ck

JSF*ck is a language that works with Javascript, but only uses square brackets, parentheses, exclamation points, and the plus sign. This kind of reminds me of trying to learn RegExp if knowledge of RegExp was required to do something in that language. However, JSF*ck is compatible with Javascript, so you can even run it in a regular program. Here are some examples of how difficult this can be:

5. Malbolge

Malbolge is one of the most difficult programming languages ​​to learn. Moreover: it is almost impossible to use. This is most clearly evidenced by the fact that even the creator of the Malbolge language could not write a program in it. Most of the code in Malbolge is written using other languages, although some scripts are written in pure Malbolge. An example of how to write Hello World in this language is shown below:

6 Great Tools to Improve Developer Productivity

Source: Dev.to Whenever it comes to work, whether you're working on a side project while sipping a cup of coffee, or you're having a busy workday to complete your task before a deadline, you want to make sure that you do everything possible for this. This is where developer productivity tools come in handy. In this article, I will not mention tools such as Trello, Slack, Jira and others that are quite widely known. Instead, I'm going to talk about tools that are underrated and aren't really that popular (but should definitely get some recognition). Each of them can be used by individual programmers and development teams.

Cold Turkey

If you blame yourself for not having the willpower to stay away from social media or being easily distracted by instant messenger notifications, then this is the perfect app for you. Using Cold Turkey, you can restrict your access to certain desktop applications, websites, or even disable Internet access completely. You set your own schedule and daily access limits depending on your needs. The tool is compatible with RescueTime, which can help you manage your work time more effectively.

7pace

How often do you follow DevOps practices in your development cycle? I'm assuming that you or your team are already using Kanban or Scrum boards to manage your work. Well, it would be handy if you could embed a time tracking solution right into your development team's board to track your activities, automate output reports, and manage resources and budgets in large organizations. If you are interested in such a tool, then 7pace will be a good choice for you. 7pace Timetracker is designed specifically for software development teams working in an Agile, Scrum or Waterfall environment. Users using this tool log each task in just three seconds on average. To improve efficiency, 7pace Timetracker can be integrated with Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). And if you use GitHub project boards to manage your projects, 7pace has a beta version that lets you integrate a time tracking solution directly into them.

Time Out

Unfortunately, this tool is only available for macOS for now. Time Out definitely tops the list of best tools if you're interested in taking breaks the right way. It has a simple and intuitive interface, as well as extensive customization options. With Time Out, you can schedule short breaks of 15 seconds every 15 minutes or long breaks of 10 minutes every hour. It all depends on whether you want to do a short 15-second eye exercise or drink a cup of coffee.

F.lux

Typically, computer screens are designed to work in daylight. But what if you sometimes want to work in the twilight? If you have a bad habit of writing code at night, then you should pay attention to this tool. F.lux automatically changes the brightness of your computer screen depending on the lighting in the room where you are. Just turn on f.lux and forget about problems with monitor brightness. It will automatically adjust the screen to give you the best experience.

WakaTime

This tool monitors your work as a programmer. It shows you all the details of your work - what file you were working on, the operating system and even the language. You can even compete with your teammates on the leaderboard and see who has the most coding scores. This is very useful when it comes to managing the project budget and developer productivity. Since the tool also has a time tracking solution, you can combine it with TimeCamp .

Habitica

One of my favorite instruments. Habitica is a free habit-building app that treats your real life like a game. By rewarding or punishing the programmer, the application motivates to improve its operating mode. In this way, Habitica can help you achieve your goals of being healthy, hardworking and happy. Habitica takes you into the old world of pixel-like platforms where you, the hero, struggle to achieve daily, weekly and long-term goals, habits and to-do lists. For each goal you achieve, you get points, discover new animals, and can buy weapons to gain strength. The more you fail to cope with your tasks, the more you lose strength. The challenge is to keep your character alive.