// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Bespoke: A Programming Language for People Who Say Please
We kill processes, abort transactions, throw exceptions, break out of loops, and execute instructions. We acquire locks without asking, mutate values without apologising, and order the machine to return as though it were a Labrador. Even the gentler languages expect us to address the runtime in a sequence of terse imperatives:
No salutation. No explanation. Not so much as a much obliged.
I therefore propose Bespoke, a statically typed and uncompromisingly civilised programming language for developers who believe that machine execution should never come at the expense of good manners. Informally it is known as The Queen’s Code: Victoria’s, naturally; the etiquette committee has yet to approve the twentieth century. Source files use the .charming extension, and the compiler reserves the right to be disappointed in you.
The implementation is, at present, somewhat less advanced than the etiquette manual. This is entirely appropriate: one does not rush a formal introduction.
(No relation to Josiah Winslow’s Bespoke, the 2025 esolang based on Poetic that encodes instructions through word lengths. We regret the social inconvenience.)
Bespoke begins with one simple observation: the compiler is an esteemed collaborator, not a menial functionary. It will not accept an unadorned command. Every request must open with an appropriate form of address, state its purpose courteously, and conclude with an approved acknowledgement. Control-flow blocks supply their own ceremonial openings and closings.
Allocations and updates are addressed to the Compiler; terminal output, including standard error, to the Output Console; filesystem operations and runtime services to the Host Environment. Shared objects and worker threads receive their correspondence directly. One does not ask the groundskeeper to announce the guests.
This is more verbose than int carriageCount = 0, but considerably less likely to create a hostile work environment.
Punctuation is grammatical rather than ornamental. Statements end with full stops, inquiries with question marks, and a block with a suitable sign-off. Semicolons are rejected as the conversational equivalent of slamming a door.
Bespoke is statically typed because allowing a value to pretend to be something it is not would be dishonest. It is also nominally typed because introductions matter. Types are written in full; clipped little vulgarisms such as int, char, and bool have no place in polite source code.