Brainfuck
Brainfuck is an esoteric programming language created in 1993 by Urban Müller. It is notable for its extreme minimalism, consisting of only eight commands. Despite its simplicity, Brainfuck is Turing-complete, meaning it can theoretically compute any computation that any other programming language can.
The language operates on an array of memory cells, initially set to zero, and a data pointer which initially points to the first cell. Each of the eight commands performs a specific operation on the current cell or the data pointer.
The commands are as follows:
>(increment the data pointer): Move the data pointer to the next cell to the right.<(decrement the data pointer): Move the data pointer to the next cell to the left.+(increment the byte at the data pointer): Increase the value of the current cell by one.-(decrement the byte at the data pointer): Decrease the value of the current cell by one..(output the byte at the data pointer): Output the ASCII character corresponding to the value of the current cell.,(accept one byte of input, storing its value in the byte at the data pointer): Read a single character from the input and store its ASCII value in the current cell.[(if the byte at the data pointer is zero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump to the command after the matching]): Begin a loop. If the value of the current cell is zero, jump to the matching closing bracket.](if the byte at the data pointer is nonzero, then instead of moving the instruction pointer forward to the next command, jump to the command after the matching[): End a loop. If the value of the current cell is not zero, jump back to the matching opening bracket.
Due to its obscure syntax and minimalist nature, Brainfuck is rarely used for practical programming. It is more often used as a challenge for programmers and as a demonstration of the theoretical limits of computation. Compilers and interpreters for Brainfuck are relatively simple to implement, contributing to its appeal as a programming exercise. The lack of built-in functions and complex data types means all operations must be constructed from these eight basic commands, resulting in complex and often unreadable code.