Category talk:Brainfuck equivalents

I propose to clarify that "Brainfuck equivalent" is meant in a rather narrow sense. As a guideline, a language is "Brainfuck equivalent" if it can be described as a straightforward alternate syntax (encoding) for brainfuck and its semantics are not described differently from how brainfuck's semantics are described.

That wording's maybe not great, but the idea is, if the language is described as "you have some input, you do something not-very-complicated to it, you get a program consisting of the 8 brainfuck instructions (or 6 if you drop I/O), and then you execute that", then it's a brainfuck equivalent. Anything beyond that, it's a derivative, but not an equivalent.

I won't say "trivial encoding" because, well, say there was a language Encrypted Brainfuck, which was the language of pairs of (encrypted brainfuck program, key). The encoding is not trivial, but it is straightforward. IMO it would go in this category.

Persuant to this, I'd also like to kick Pure BF and *brainfuck out of the category, as they go beyond this sense of equivalent (they both have their semantics described in a way that deviates from brainfuck.)

Also, I'd like to raise the possibility of this being a subcategory of Brainfuck derivative anyway. Chris Pressey (talk) 21:42, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, never mind that last sentence; it already is a subcat. Chris Pressey (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I know Ørjan seems to concur with this, and Koen seems agreeable too. I also came across There Once was a Fish Named Fred which I believe belongs in this category, even though it lacks brainfuck's ,. Maybe the description for this category could read:

Languages that are equivalent to brainfuck. Note that "equivalent" is meant here in a very narrow sense. This category is for languages which are straightforward alternate syntaxes/encodings for brainfuck, with or without its I/O facilites. Languages which have semantics that differ from brainfuck's, even in small ways, do not belong in this category.

Except, uh, not in those colours :) How does that sound? Chris Pressey (talk) 02:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

AAAAAAAA my eyes! I mean, looks fine. Are you sure you're not secretly Gregor? --Ørjan (talk) 19:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure. I don't seem to own any hats at all. Anyway, there didn't seem to be any objections, so change made, thanks for your time. Chris Pressey (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

more commands than 8

is it an equivalent when it has <>+-[].,()? the circle brackets are just another type of loop

just asking! Cinnamony (talk)