There is zero mention of a language there. The author is just complaining about the protocol used. What if they had used HTTP? I mean, what's the actual problem with using email? It sends data just fine, receives data just fine, the fact that the server was slow in compiling and would email you the build errors is frustrating, but hardly such a poor design choice. It probably saved them a bunch of time.

Conceptually, this is not much different than the TeamCity setup that I am using now. Check-in code with SVN, build server eventually realizes that there are new changes, builds project, and emails me a success/failure message.

Of course, I can build and run the code locally before checking in.

The article is interesting enough, but the thing that amazed me was "The world's longest ongoing illustration": http://www.foreverscape.com/

I did some work for a company whose build system involved uploading Java files via a web interface and waiting patiently whilst it compiled them and then refreshed the page with either "Success!" or "Error!" - nothing else. There were some serious oddities (like it didn't understand nested classes, perhaps? I forget the specifics...) which took an awful lot of trial and error to diagnose.

They also had a similar thing where you would upload Flash files (FLAs) and various assets like fonts, and it then compiled it all into a SWF. Again, with no useful output. Getting that to work was mostly just praying and swearing - I'm pretty sure it was non-deterministic. I think that was the closest to tears I've ever been whilst writing software.

The first project I did for them, I allowed two weeks for the build and one day to compile the assets with their system (because I hadn't been told it involved web interfaces and no error handling). The second time, I allowed two weeks for the build and two weeks to compile it.

That's all about the build environment, not at all about the language.

My personal nomination for the shittiest language I ever used is MUMPS.

Hey, I knew a MUMPS programmer. Nice family guy too. Anyone would have guessed by appearances he was a car mechanic (dirty jeans, greasy hair etc.) and not a programmer. Not many MUMPS programmers out there, sound like anyone you know?

Isn't that just a primitive form of SCM and CI? Sure, the implementation sucked but it was obviously decades before its time.

Wow, that brings back memories. Any other AOL "hax0rs" from back in the day, remember a rainman account was the holy grail?

The article would be a lot more interesting if it featured some examples of code and email responses.

Well, that was pretty much impossible to read and as far as I can tell had nothing to do with a bad language (other than the author's use of offensive words)...

I had a friend who around 1996/7 hacked together some shell scripts where he could send an email to himself and it would get automatically posted to his 'weblog'. It was very cool and he used it like people use twitter/facebook today.