# Brainfuck

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Brainfuck and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Minimal esoteric language people use to teach low-level logic and for fun. Critics say it is impractical for writing large programs or software for others.

## Why people recommend it

- Teaches low-level logic to students (2 comments): "as an educational tool, the only thing wrong with it is the name" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46143169)) "just to really show students how low-level logic can be" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46141538))
- Fun, beautiful esoteric toy language (2 comments): "It's a beautiful little toy language." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46215937)) "fun esoteric languages like Brainfuck" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49244755))

## What people warn about

- Unsuitable for large or real programs (2 comments): "I wouldn't want to write a big program in it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46140591)) "It and Brainfuck are the only 2 languages you should never use to make software for other people" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45803927))
- Very slow to run programs (1 comments): "interpreting the brainfuck mandelbrot program takes several hours" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49376489))

## 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, "Brainfuck", https://hackerapproved.com/p/brainfuck/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).