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Piet

Piet is a programming language in which programs look like abstract paintings. The language is named after Piet Mondrian, who pioneered the field of geometric abstract art. I would have liked to call the language Mondrian, but someone beat me to it with a rather mundane-looking scripting language. Oh well, we can’t all be esoteric language writers I suppose.

Notes:
- I wrote the Piet specification a long time ago, and the language has taken on a bit of a life of its own, with a small community of coders writing Piet programs, interpreters, IDEs, and even compilers. I have not written any “authoritative” interpreter, and the different ones available sometimes interpret the specification slightly differently.
- Over the years I have tended to field questions about the spec with “whatever you think makes the most sense”, rather than any definitive clarification - thus the slightly different versions out there. I have now added some clarifications to this specification to address some of the questions I have been asked over the years. Hopefully they are sensible and most implementations will already be compliant, but it’s possible some do not comply. Caveat emptor.
- Some people like to use Piet to set puzzles in various competitions. This web page and the linked resources can help you solve those puzzles, if you have a reasonable grasp of computer coding. If you do not, or it looks too difficult, I suggest asking some of your friends who may be computer programmers to help you. Please do not email to ask me for help. Although I wish you the best in solving your puzzle, I do not have time to help everyone in this situation.”

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