Most programming languages want you to go faster. Faster compile times, faster iteration, faster shipping. So for TinkerHub's Useless Projects 2.0 hackathon — a Kerala event celebrating gloriously useless software — my teammate Abin Zachariah Abraham and I went the other way: we built a language that actively slows you down.

SlowLang (also called TortoiseLang) is a sarcastic, Python-like programming language with its own Tkinter IDE. Its core feature is a typing-speed enforcer: type too fast and it throws errors at you.

What it actually does

  • It tracks your typing speed in the IDE. Cross the threshold and you get an angry ASCII turtle and a lockout until you calm down.
  • Error messages are haikus and sarcastic praise instead of stack traces.
  • There's a lazy mode that randomly refuses to run, because sometimes the code just isn't in the mood.
  • It runs in the browser too — a Pyodide-powered demo mirrors the desktop behavior, no install needed.

Under the jokes there's real engineering: a keyboard-event monitor, a state machine for turtle moods (calm / annoyed / furious), a rage lockout timer, and a pytest suite covering the spec. The browser demo reimplements the same state machine in JavaScript, so both versions behave identically.

Why build something useless on purpose

The hackathon's whole point was creativity over practicality. Building a joke with craft taught us more than a CRUD app would have: state machines, desktop UI with Tkinter, packaging a Python project properly, and porting the same behavior to a WASM runtime for the web demo. Also, it won — SlowLang took first place at Useless Projects 2.0.

I wrote about the event itself on LinkedIn earlier, and posted the winner announcement when the results came out.

Try it / steal it

I'm a B.Tech CS student at College of Engineering Chengannur in Kerala, India. If a sarcastic turtle ever taught you anything about your typing habits, I'd love to hear it.