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[Nostril actor]

https://github.com/Frib/Armok

Above is an amazing Turing tarpit representation of a very dorfish coding language. My suggestion is simply to implement this language into the game creating a simple (sort of?) coding language for the dwarves to use to make things automated.

[FearfulJesuit]

That looks like brainfuck...is it qualitatively different in any way?

[Alpha Dwarf]

Congratulations.

[Nostril actor]

That looks like brainfuck...is it qualitatively different in any way?

Yeah I think it was mainly based on brainfuck but with a spice of dwarf. I think it would be the perfect thing for dwarves to compute with!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why would dwarves even compute? Outside of megaprojects, of course.

That being said...could this be made into a dorfputing language?

[Cool Guy]

And where would we input this 'code'?

[Nostril actor]

And where would we input this 'code'?

Perhaps we build certain code blocks that are constructed (essentially the '+') which then act as the dwarf and are given instructions via inputs such as pressure plates or minecarts and then continue to execute along a path planned in through a menu. I think it would be confusing but very dwarfy!

[thisisjimmy]

Other than for novelty purposes, no one would actually want to use such a language.  It makes writing even the simplest programs very complicated (look at the "True Hello World!" example).  The programs also tend to take a very long time to execute.  It wouldn't be feasible to make a program of reasonable complexity. 

If you want a language to automate tasks in game, you're going to want to choose a more conventional language.  Turing tarpits aren't intended for actual use.

[Cobbler89]

Aside from having robots do dwarf tasks for the dwarves, I can't see a way to make things in DF more automated than a well-managed fortress already is.

And we already have programmable dwarven computers in-game.

Really, it's an amusing tribute to both DF and the underpinnings of computing*, but it isn't something that would actually make sense in the game, nor does it demonstrate anything that would make sense in the game and isn't already in it, at least potentially.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I think it would be helpful for someone to apply dwarven computing to controlling a fortress's work somehow; I just don't think it needs some sort of "programming language" addition to do it... If it can't be done with current in-game computing techniques, then what we'd really need is an extremely simple ability for the overseer (the player) to assign jobs that persist and are performed based on conditions, e.g. "queue up ten more drinks to be brewed each time drink quantity drops below twenty," not a programming language that involves turing-like processing -- that's for dwarven computing that already exists, for kicks and giggles.

*I've actually done the sort of computing that involves storing values in a register, so I understand a little of that when I read about new ARM processors and assembly/machine language and the like; similarly, I've read about turing machines, so I have some idea how turing tarpits demonstrate how one gets from the underlying concept of a turing machine to an actual computer that reads data from RAM and acts on it with a processor (as turing machines go, to my understanding, the hard disc is more like the long-term data storage unit where the tape is retrieved from, and the RAM more like the tape, although the ease of moving data between the two makes the matter appear more complex than it is in essence). Now, if I understood the different types of OS kernels and how an OS manages a whole computer, I'd have a complete overview of the technology...

[Taren]

Hmm I think if you were doing any kind of advanced work, or large megaproject steampunk kind of circuitry it'd work in binary, just a series of switches and leavers mostly, cogs and levers churning away.  I can picture dwarves building that kind of setup and then everything exploding horribly.

Not sure what to use it for, golems or large engineering works like dams and automated projects perhaps. Maybe something for adventure mode or lore?