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Bespoke: A Programming Language for People Who Say Please

Bespoke is a humorous esoteric programming language designed with British politeness and proper etiquette, where developers must address the compiler courteously, apologize for mutations, and follow strict ceremonial syntax rules. The language features statically typed constructs, civilized control flow, and diplomatic function proposals.

Charming.

blog.hofstede.it →

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Related to

Commodore 64 Released September 1 1982 Both celebrate esoteric/quirky aspects of computing culture — the Commodore 64 nostalgia and Bespoke's satirical politeness rules both engage with programming as cultural artifact rather than purely practical tool
Load-Bearing Vocabulary of Claude Both examine how the specific vocabulary and phrasing used with computational systems shapes behavior — Bespoke satirizes this by making politeness syntactically required, mirroring the real phenomenon of 'load-bearing vocabulary' in Claude prompting
Canon: A Text-Based Game Creator for Kids Both are humorous/playful programming language concepts designed for non-traditional audiences — Canon targets kids through text-based game creation, Bespoke targets 'polite' programmers through satirical etiquette rules

Supports

AI Coding and the Bug Selection Problem Bespoke's humorous framing of mutations requiring apologies satirizes real programming pain points (side effects, state mutation) that directly relate to the 'bug selection problem' in AI coding — both highlight how programmer intent and compiler/AI interpretation diverge

Challenges

8 Myths of Software Development with AI Bespoke's satirical take on compiler interaction implicitly challenges myths about how programming languages should work, using humor to expose assumptions about developer-tool relationships that articles debunking AI development myths also scrutinize

Numberwang Neural Network Both are whimsical, comedy-derived technical projects that use real engineering (neural nets / programming language design) to implement absurdist concepts from British humor

Type:	link
First published:	Thursday, 10 September 2026 at 15:37 UTC
Location:	https://blog.hofstede.it/bespoke-a-programming-language-for-people-who-say-please/
URL:	https://mattwood.fyi/i/f05bf055

I'm Matt Wood, and this is For Your Information. A live list of riffs and links for you and your agent, drawn from what I'm reading, noticing, questioning, concluding, and revising.

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