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hundredrabbits
Orca
JavaScript2019–2026
hundredrabbits / Orca

Orca

Esoteric Programming Language

Languages & CompilersNetworking
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
19Distinct people
20Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
5.1KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Esoteric Programming Language

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

One recent favorite of these mentioned in the article is ORCA [1], which is really an incredible little thing. It is essentially a live coding environment for generating MIDI…

OskarS used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 8:03:49 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year20 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2019-01-12 01:17:23 UTC to 2026-02-05 22:41:47 UTC.

02462019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 2 submissions, 5 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments20222023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC725
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

4 sources
vegadw·Oct 25, 2020
For sure. This list started as a collection of links for a bunch of my friends that are into both art and storytelling but none of them have the programming experience I have so I tried to link the more user-friendly stuff up top and get generally more esoteric going down, though I haven't gone though and really enforced that ideal into the list yet. I think there's an interesting balancing act going on here as some of the appeal of these tools is their inherit complexity and strangeness acting as a sort of creative propellant as it puts you into a different mindset. I think that tools that are on the surface approachable but still let the user get into the really deep aspects have a lot more potential to allow for artistic revolutions (for lack of a better way to put it). I also don't think it has to be just for newcomers as Processing a
Read the rest
nd the like try to be, For example- the multiple Rust frameworks on the page. Honestly I'm not even super into the generative art scene much beyond being a general nerd and observer. I am really into generative music, with tools like Orca [1], the various modules in VCV Rack [2] being my go-tos but I still love looking into and toying with other generative and/or live coding music tools too. I think there's a certain nostalgia for the demoscene that while I completely understand, clouds the reality that it was at it's core about pushing hardware beyond it's limits for the sake of creative uses. If we have all the compute we could ever need now then I think it's great that people who may have been into the demo scene are instead able to spend their time on making cool, usable tools and art with those tools. Besides, for the people that crave the highly technical, it's not like esolangs or ioccc or making Quines etc. are going anywhere. Plus, the demo scene isn't even truly dead, if you look around there's definitely still plenty of the same old-school stuff going on. Some of it on the old hardware of the era, some of it pushing today's micros or even beefy x86 systems to their limits. [1] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca [2] https://library.vcvrack.com/?query=&brand=&tag=Random&licens...
In List of Generative Art and Live Coding Tools

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