MY FAVOURITE TOY LANGUAGE

Domain	Definition
Computing	My Favourite Toy Language (MFTL) Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics (e.g. type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see content-free). More broadly applied to talks - even when the topic is not a programming language --- in which the subject matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous detail at the sacrifice of any conceptual content. "Well, it was a typical MFTL talk". 2. A language about which the developers are passionate (often to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else cares about. Applied to the language by those outside the originating group. "He cornered me about type resolution in his MFTL." The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away from contamination by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it in itself. Thus, the standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is "Has it been used for anything besides its own compiler?". On the other hand, a language that cannot be used to write its own compiler is beneath contempt. Doug McIlroy once proposed a test of the generality and utility of a language and the operating system under which it is compiled: "Is the output of a Fortran program acceptable as input to the Fortran compiler?" In other words, can you write programs that write programs? Alarming numbers of (language, OS) pairs fail this test, particularly when the language is Fortran. Aficionados are quick to point out that Unix (even using Fortran) passes it handily. That the test could ever be failed is only surprising to those who have had the good fortune to have worked only under modern systems which lack OS-supported and -imposed "file types". See break-even point, toolsmith. (1995-03-07). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

4D 59 46 41 56 4F 55 52 49 54 45 54 4F 59 4C 41 4E 47 55 41 47 45

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010110 01001111 01010101 01010010 01001001 01010100 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001111 01011001 00100000 01001100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01010101 01000001 01000111 01000101

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#77 &#89 &#32 &#70 &#65 &#86 &#79 &#85 &#82 &#73 &#84 &#69 &#32 &#84 &#79 &#89 &#32 &#76 &#65 &#78 &#71 &#85 &#65 &#71 &#69

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

004D 0059 0046 0041 0056 004F 0055 0052 0049 0054 0045 0054 004F 0059 004C 0041 004E 0047 0055 0041 0047 0045

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

MY FAVOURITE TOY LANGUAGE

Specialty Definition: MY FAVOURITE TOY LANGUAGE

Computing

Crosswords: MY FAVOURITE TOY LANGUAGE

Alternative Orthography: MY FAVOURITE TOY LANGUAGE

4D 59 46 41 56 4F 55 52 49 54 45 54 4F 59 4C 41 4E 47 55 41 47 45

01001101 01011001 00100000 01000110 01000001 01010110 01001111 01010101 01010010 01001001 01010100 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001111 01011001 00100000 01001100 01000001 01001110 01000111 01010101 01000001 01000111 01000101

&#77 &#89 &#32 &#70 &#65 &#86 &#79 &#85 &#82 &#73 &#84 &#69 &#32 &#84 &#79 &#89 &#32 &#76 &#65 &#78 &#71 &#85 &#65 &#71 &#69

004D 0059 0046 0041 0056 004F 0055 0052 0049 0054 0045 0054 004F 0059 004C 0041 004E 0047 0055 0041 0047 0045

47592403556495552435439254495924635484155354139

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