January 13, 2026
When $LANG broke HN’s chill
The $LANG Programming Language
Everyone thought a new language launched—then HN lagged and jokes flew
TLDR: A cheeky index of “The ___ Programming Language” threads sparked confusion and briefly slowed Hacker News until a moderator adjusted the link. Comments split between praising the resource and joking that someone should just build a real language called $LANG, debating whether these niche posts help or clutter.
Plot twist: “The $LANG Programming Language” wasn’t a mysterious new tech—it was a playful index bundling Hacker News threads titled “The ___ Programming Language,” featuring quirky favorites like Lobster, Red, and Koto. Readers cheered the convenience, with one user saying it’s “Very useful!”, while others scratched their heads wondering if this was a real HN feature or just static pages. One commenter asked point-blank if these were new entries or just static list pages, and the confusion snowballed when folks briefly believed a brand-new language named “$LANG” had dropped. Cue the memes: imagine a language that changes depending on your computer’s language setting.
Then came the chaos. The HN moderator [dang] confessed, “Yikes, I tanked HN’s performance” after the page hammered old threads, and quickly tweaked the link to stop the slowdown. Another user dubbed it a “fun false positive”, basically a mistaken alarm that set the whole crowd buzzing.
The strongest opinions split fast: fans wanted the mega-index of language threads, skeptics groaned about site bloat and rabbit holes. The vibe? Delightfully chaotic—gratitude, confusion, performance drama, and a rallying cry for someone to actually ship a language named $LANG so the joke can become real.
Key Points
- •This is a Hacker News index aggregating posts titled “The $LANG Programming Language.”
- •It lists numerous languages with links to official sites, GitHub repos, or references, plus points, age, and comment counts.
- •High-engagement entries include Jank (423 points), C3 (370), Koto (214), and Red (213).
- •The list spans mainstream, experimental, and esoteric languages, e.g., Tcl, Chapel, COW, and SETL.
- •The page mirrors standard HN navigation and structure, indicating an index-style compilation.