This program prints "Hello World!" and a newline to the screen, its length is 106 active command characters. [It is not the shortest.] This loop is an "initial comment loop", a simple way of adding a comment to a BF program such that you don't have to worry about any command characters. Any ".", ",", "+", "-", "<" and ">" characters are simply ignored, the "[" and "]" characters just have to be balanced. This loop and the commands it contains are ignored because the current cell defaults to a value of 0; the 0 value causes this loop to be skipped. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck#Hello_World! ALL ABOARD chug chug chug chug chug chug chug chug END OF THE LINE Set Cell #0 to 8 ALL ABOARD tickets please choo chug chug chug chug END OF THE LINE Add 4 to Cell #1; this will always set Cell #1 to 4 ALL ABOARD tickets please END OF THE LINE as the cell will be cleared by the loop ALL ABOARD choo chug chug END OF THE LINE Add 2 to Cell #2 ALL ABOARD choo chug chug chug END OF THE LINE Add 3 to Cell #3 ALL ABOARD choo chug chug chug END OF THE LINE Add 3 to Cell #4 ALL ABOARD choo chug END OF THE LINE Add 1 to Cell #5 ALL ABOARD choo choo choo choo choo choo choo choo chugga END OF THE LINE Decrement the loop counter in Cell #1 ALL ABOARD your ticket please END OF THE LINE Loop until Cell #1 is zero; number of iterations is 4 ALL ABOARD choo chug END OF THE LINE Add 1 to Cell #2 ALL ABOARD choo chug END OF THE LINE Add 1 to Cell #3 ALL ABOARD choo chugga END OF THE LINE Subtract 1 from Cell #4 ALL ABOARD choo choo chug END OF THE LINE Add 1 to Cell #6 ALL ABOARD tickets please choo choo your ticket please END OF THE LINE Move back to the first zero cell you find; this will be Cell #1 which was cleared by the previous loop ALL ABOARD choo choo chugga END OF THE LINE Decrement the loop Counter in Cell #0 ALL ABOARD your ticket please END OF THE LINE Loop until Cell #0 is zero; number of iterations is 8 The result of this is: Cell no : 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Contents: 0 0 72 104 88 32 8 Pointer : ^ ALL ABOARD choo choo click END OF THE LINE Cell #2 has value 72 which is 'H' ALL ABOARD choo chugga chugga chugga click END OF THE LINE Subtract 3 from Cell #3 to get 101 which is 'e' ALL ABOARD chug chug chug chug chug chug chug clickety click chug chug chug click END OF THE LINE Likewise for 'llo' from Cell #3 ALL ABOARD choo choo click END OF THE LINE Cell #5 is 32 for the space ALL ABOARD choo choo chugga clickety END OF THE LINE Subtract 1 from Cell #4 for 87 to give a 'W' ALL ABOARD choo choo clickety END OF THE LINE Cell #3 was set to 'o' from the end of 'Hello' ALL ABOARD chug chug chug click chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga clickety chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga click END OF THE LINE Cell #3 for 'rl' and 'd' ALL ABOARD choo choo chug click END OF THE LINE Add 1 to Cell #5 gives us an exclamation point ALL ABOARD choo chug chug click END OF THE LINE And finally a newline from Cell #6