Hello and welcome to this computer programming tutorial.

This tutorial is an introduction to computer programming for complete beginners. It uses the programming language BrainFu to explain the most essential computer programming concepts.

The language BrainFu is an excellent first programming language to learn, due to its overwhelming simplicity. With only eight commands to learn, you'll be able to get started quickly and easily. Other computer languages usually require learning hundreds of commands. Learning eight simple commands should be fast and easy. In less than 30 minutes, you will learn the entire programming language BrainFu.

The Interpreter's Interface

Before you start writing programs in the language BrainFu, you need to familiarize yourself with the BrainFu interpreter. The online interpreter is available on this page. To get started, click on the “Run” button to execute the example programs, one by one.

You'll notice that some example programs end immediately, while others take a long time to end, or don't end at all. Don't worry - you can terminate any program using the interpreter's “Terminate” button.

The Eight Commands of the Language BrainFu

The language BrainFu consists of only eight simple commands. It is a good idea to have a quick glance at all of them. Here they are:

In the table, each command has a name and a symbol. The symbol for each command is just one character.

The Debugger's Interface

Now you need to familiarize yourself with the debugger. The debugger allows you to step through a program one instruction at a time, so that you can see each command being executed.

To get started, select the first example program, “Hello World!”. Then, click the “Enable Debugger” button. The debugger's interface will be displayed.

Click the “Debug Start” button to start the “Hello World!” program. The program won't execute any commands yet. The program won't execute any commands yet. The "Watch" box displays the contents of the first 40 memory cells. All the memory cells will be reset to a value of zero, and the first cell, numbered "0", will be highlighted in green color.

As you click the “Step by 1 instruction” button many times, the values of the memory cells will increase. The debugger executes one command every time you click the “Step by 1 instruction” button. You can observe the execution of commands in the instruction stream above the “Step” buttons. An “instruction” is just another name for a command.

Try clicking the “Step by 1 instruction” button at least 40 times, and observe the changes.

The program will output the text “Hello World!” near the end of the execution. The entire execution is 390 instructions long. If you like, you can try out the other “Step” buttons to step faster through the program. You can also use other buttons to restart or terminate the program.

What do the Commands do?

If you click the “Step by 1 instruction” button slowly, you'll be able to observe that most instructions do exactly what the table of commands says, as described earlier in this article.

The instruction + increases a memory cell by one; the instruction > moves one cell to the right, etc.

In the next chapter, you'll learn how to write your own programs using the eight commands of the BrainFu language.