False is an esoteric programming language designed by Wouter van Oortmerssen in 1993, named after his favourite boolean value. It is a small Forth-like stack-based language, with syntax designed to make the code confusing and unreadable. It is also noteworthy for having a compiler only 1024 bytes in size (written in 68000 assembly). According to van Oortmerssen, False provided the inspiration for various well known esoteric languages, including Brainfuck and Befunge.

False is notably more tractable than most esoteric programming languages. The fundamental operations that it provides are reasonably sensible, and there is no gratuitous complexity. In these respects it stands in stark contrast to the behemoths Intercal and Malbolge. The difficulty of programming in False comes mostly from the low level nature of the language, which has the feel of a Forth-like assembly language. The remainder of the language's awkwardness comes from the concise punctuation-based syntax, which many people find more difficult than a more conventional word-based syntax.

Code examples

A factorial function:

   [$1=$[\%1\]?~[$1-f;!*]?]f:

Write all prime numbers between 0 and 100:

   99 9[1-$][\$@$@$@$@\/*=[1-$$[%\1-$@]?0=[\$.' ,\]?]?]#

External links

• Wouter's False page