Add the brainfuck post, brainfuckbrainfuckbrainfuck.

_posts/2011-07-05-you-should-learn-brainfuck.markdown

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+---
+layout: post
+title: Why you should learn Brainfuck
+tags:
+- brainfuck
+- programming
+- opinion
+---
+
+This past weekend I finally had a satisfyingly large chunk of free time that I
+could devote to hacking on various ideas, it was glorious.
+
+For one reason or another one of those things that I hacked on was a [Brainfuck
+interpreter in Ada](https://github.com/rtyler/fucked-ada/).
+
+Writing the interpeter wasn't terrifically difficult (getting the loop logic
+correct was a little tricky), but the more I tinkered with Brainfuck, the more
+fascinated I became.
+
+----
+
+***Disclaimer:*** Brainfuck is a silly, silly language that I would never try
+to use in any serious context.
+
+----
+
+For the uninitiated, [Brainfuck](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Brainfuck) is a woefully esoteric programming language with
+eight commands: `< > . , + - [ ]`. The core concept of the language is that you
+have a stack of "cells" (think bytes in memory), and all you can really do in
+the language is: move around, increment cell values and decrement cell values.
+
+What fascinates me about Brainfuck is that it **forces** you to maintain
+an exact replica of the stack in your head, there is no disconnect between my
+mental model and the computer's model of the program and its data.
+
+I'm reminded by an essay I read a week or two ago titled "[Why Programming
+Languages?](http://soft.vub.ac.be/~tvcutsem/whypls.html)" and the points the
+article's author [Tom Van Cutsem](http://soft.vub.ac.be/~tvcutsem) makes
+regarding "Language as a thought shaper"
+
+> *The goal of a thought shaper language is to change the way a programmer thinks
+> about structuring his or her program. The basic building blocks provided by a
+> programming language, as well as the ways in which they can (or cannot) be
+> combined ...*
+
+To me, this is what makes Brainfuck compelling, it is by no means a "useful"
+language in its own right but it *is* a language that affects your thinking
+about particular problems.
+
+You might enjoy the challenge of solving a sodoku puzzle on the train, I enjoy
+the challenge of solving a problem with Brainfuck.
+
+Oh, and saying "Brainfuck" out loud in polite company, I enjoy that too.
+
+Brainfuck.
+
+----