2019-05-07

Tilton

In 2000, the programmatic browser differences were perplexing, so I made a tool to help manage the problem. I started with something similar to ecomcon (see How JavaScript Works, Chapter 23). I would have special markers in the source that designated sections of code that would only be delivered to particular browsers.

<~ns4~layer.visibility = "hide";~> <~ie5~layer.style.visibility = "hidden";~>

The convention of combining angle brackets with special characters was popularized by PHP. I chose ~tilde because it is rarely used in HTML, JavaScript, or English.

I then thought to add variables.

<~set~year~2000~> <~get~year~>

If a variable could contain a sequence of digits, I should be able to add them.

<~set~next year~<~add~<~get~year~>~1~>~>

At this point I should have noticed that this language was going to be inexcusably ugly, but astonishingly, I did not notice at the time. I kept pushing on, inspired by better languages like TRAC and LISP. I determined that this was the wrong approach for dealing with browser incompatibility, but I completed the language anyway. I named it Tilton after Robert Tilton, a television faith healer and speaker of tongues. I believe that Tilton is the ugliest programming language that was not intended to be an ugly programming language.

I do not expect anyone to use Tilton, but I use Tilton every day. The json.org site is managed with Tilton. So is this one.

from Hacker News https://ift.tt/2qb6oeG