A tool is no more than art if it cannot be used for anything. Programming languages can be art, but most tend towards being tools, to fulfill some purpose or need. As it stands, Scrapscript’s design, while admirable, lacks purpose. Most languages have clear purposes - target markets, niches, gaps they fill. Granted, every single language ever fills some form of gap. So, the question becomes - ‘is the gap that Scrapscript fills useful?’,
The easiest way to answer this question is not to simply say ‘yes’, but ‘yes, here’s how’ - we need some form of ‘killer app’ or usecase for Scrapscript that shows off both it’s features, but also why they exist, and why they exist together, in the form of Scrapscript.
I completely agree!
Here are a few categories of “killer apps” I’ve been thinking about:
- scrapscript as “geocities”: If we design a platform for rendering things in the scrapscript ecosystem, we could do something like mmm.pages / univer.se / neocities / etc. The scrapscript “browser” could be something between modern web browsers and smalltalk browser
- scrapscript as “open-source wolfram language”: wolfram language is absolutely incredible, but it’s proprietary and academic. Scrapscript would make it easy to publish open datasets in the scrapyards
- scrapscript as “ai-friendly language”: this one is more of a stretch, but I think scrapscript would be a very good candidate for messaging to/from/between ai agents
- scrapscript as “scripting language”: I’ve done some experiments with a scrapscript shell inspired by oil shell and really enjoyed it
I’d love to know if any of these appeal more than the others.
There’s one more giant idea that I’m not ready to talk about yet 
stay tuned
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The last idea sounds exciting, as does the first one.
I feel like for a Wolfram-esque language, scrapscript doesn’t have some of the most important things, like unit support.
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