# Killswitch programming language

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Killswitch programming language and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Designed to frustrate LLMs, and useful as a benchmark for comparing models. Critics say agents still get around it and it is not linguistically interesting.

## Why people recommend it

- Good benchmark for testing LLMs (1 comments): "it does make for a good benchmark to see which LLMs are actually good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49863853))
- Motivates building around LLM noise (1 comments): "I don't think you can get around the fact that someone (like me) could just build around the noise you've created anyway" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50135984))
- Playful, joking praise (1 comments): "This is the greatest ever language, lol." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50146093))

## What people warn about

- Agents still easily get around it (2 comments): "I don't think you can get around the fact that someone (like me) could just build around the noise you've created anyway" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50135984)) "it's trivial for an agent to consume these programs and produce them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50148921))
- Not linguistically interesting (1 comments): "Disappointed that the language doesn't do anything linguistically interesting." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50149949))
- Misleading docs have no effect (1 comments): "the docs lying doesn't do anything" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150859))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Rust](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rust.md): 2039 recommend
- [Go](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-programming-language.md): 1254 recommend
- [Python](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python.md): 1067 recommend
- [Zig](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zig.md): 743 recommend
- [TypeScript](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typescript.md): 574 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Killswitch programming language", https://hackerapproved.com/p/killswitch-programming-language/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).