Top 10 World’s Hardest Programming Languages 2018

In this post, i will be going into little details of each programming language, mainly because many of them are very different and i could dedicate an entire article to each one. Hence, i will see them in summary form.


Many times we might have all asked ourselves that what are the most difficult programming languages to learn? Some will say that it is Fortran, others will say that it is C with its pointers or C++ that also has classes, etc.

But today I have not come to talk about all these languages for mortals. As today I will talk about those programming languages that come from a twisted mind, designed after a night of boozing and implemented with a sickly dose of sadism.

The ones that appear here are probably some languages so obscured, complicated and cruel that you would probably prefer to jump down a ravine to a river of lava rather than try to dominate them. Yes, my words may seem quite funny and joking, but, I am really telling you the true fact about all the programming languages that are mentioned below. So, now without wasting much time let’s get started:

1. LOLCODE

If understanding two thousand lines of code was not enough punishment for human eyes, here comes LOLCODE, which has all its instructions are written in the language of Internet chats, that is: with faults, abbreviations, and expressions that would turn the most-calm academics into a vengeful god by just reading a line.
2. Shakespeare Programming Language (SPL)

In contrast to LOLCODE, we have the Shakespeare programming language. If understanding a code already has a certain degree of difficulty in itself, imagine now that the whole program is a play written by Shakespeare.
3. Chef

Who could ever think that behind an innocent cooking recipe can hide a program? The lovers of the kitchen will undoubtedly adore Chef, the only programming language in which the variables are ingredients, the dishes are arrays and the bowls are pointers.
4. Spaghetti Programming Language

When a code is called “spaghetti code” it means that it is badly organized: there are many GoTo, the functions are badly ordered, the variables are declared in unexpected places, basically, it is like a bowl of spaghetti in which the flow of the program twist from one point to another.

The Spaghetti Programming Language is a language specially designed to create spaghetti code. Each function must end in a GoTo, but with the condition that you can not jump to the next line. In a more simple word, this is a program that jumps from one line to another without any apparent logic.
5) Trollscript

Trollscript is a language that can only be programmed with two characters: ‘o’ and ‘l’. In addition, all functions must start with ‘tr’. That, added to the fact that it can only be programmed by modifying pointers and memory addresses, makes the Trollscript name, without any doubt, the most suitable for this language.
6) Intercal

Intercal programming language is not only difficult, as it wants to make the programmer suffer as well. The expressions look like a line of badly encoded text, there are no data structures and many instructions are executed only by typing, literally “PLEASE”. If there are not enough PLEASE in the program, it will be offended when compiling and will not work. Likewise, if there is an excess, the program will feel superior to the programmer and it will not work either.
7. Whitespace

To better understand Whitespace, it will be best to see an example. This program asks for a string and shows it on the screen. Like I forgot to write the code? If it’s right there! Try selecting the blank space.

Indeed. Whitespace is a programming language that only has three values: space, line break, and tabulator. With this, any possible algorithm can be implemented and the best thing about this language is to cast a program in Whitespace within a normal program.
8. Brainfuck

Brainfuck aims to be a minimalist language with only eight characters, extremely difficult to understand. The language declares an array of variables initialized to zero, and the program consists of using a pointer to edit the values.
9. Unlambda

Like Brainfuck, Unlambda is a language designed to make it virtually impossible to program with it.
10. Malbolge

Malbolge Only the name already imparts respect, a language with unusual cruelty and malice. Malbolge owes its name to the Eighth Circle of Hell of the Divine Comedy of Dante, where sinners are classified according to their crime before being punished. In the hell of the programmers, you work with Malbolge.

Do you think that the previous languages are difficult to program? Malbolge is not only designed to be complicated, as it pretends to be impossible to compile! There is no official compiler for Malbolge or a specific list of instructions: these change according to their position but not their position in the program.

However, now if we talk about the best programming language that you should learn for your professional career then in my personal opinion, i will simply recommend you to go for PHP, as it is one of the languages that will always be there, simply because of its versatility, as the future tends to the web, to mobility. In recent years the web has grown unstoppably.

As PHP is a simple and powerful language, with great potential. You can do practically everything. And now with the embedded mobile applications, the possibilities have increased considerably. As a server language, it is clear that it is a great bet. PHP is passed, present and future of the web. A good decision without any doubt.

Do you know any other programming language that should appear on this list? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
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