Writing a Brainfuck interpreter is a superb optimization exercise. Basic version is trivial to write, and in 2-3 iterations it's possible to get speed ups of 10

Writing a Brainfuck interpreter is a superb optimization exercise. Basic version is trivial to write, and in 2-3 iterations it's possible to get speed ups of 100x or more. If you haven't tried it, I would highly recommended it as a brain stretcher. Then try and see if it's faster than this one - http://mazonka.com/brainf/bff4.c http://mazonka.com/brainf/bff4.c