Hello

[Brynet-Inc]

I still don't get what is so <BLEEP!>ing interesting about brain<BLEEP!>.

Absoluetley nothing, It's a horrible language..

People just like the fact that they can swear at work, and not get fired...

[JamesM]

I counter with a quote from the same page you linked, italics are mine:

bf_to_f.py
... a translator from byte-cell Brainfuck to F
(a second proof that F is Turing complete, given that byte-cell Brainfuck is T.C.)

Touche, sir! (imagine that there's an acute accent on that 'e'...)

[Solar]

I still don't get what is so <BLEEP!>ing interesting about brain<BLEEP!>.

Absoluetley nothing, It's a horrible language..

Actually, if I were to hold classes of the "programming from the ground up" kind, my first lesson would be held in Brainfuck. No kidding!

It is as syntactically simple as a Turing-complete language could get, yet it allows to introduce many very important concepts right at the start:

• source - compiler - executable,
• memory as an array of bytes,
• variables and pointers,
• importance of commenting your source,
• even if you understand an algorithm intuitively ("take two numbers and calculate their sum"), you still have to break it down so the computer understands.

Then I would go on to C, and show them how wonderful even a crufty old language like C can be when compared to BF. And once they got some more concepts down by heart (functions, data structures, call by value, call by reference, deep vs. shallow copy, ...), I could go on to whatever language they really have to learn.

BF isn't a great language per se, but there is no better way to show how simplicity in a language leads to complexity in solutions.

[AndrewAPrice]

There's a BASIC to BF compiler. It had commands to change the colour of the screen but they never worked

I've heard rumours (but still looking for) a C to BF compiler.