Why Hello World?

If you are starting yet to study programming or a specific programming language, you may notice that the first thing that your teacher/instructor would assign you to do is to create a program that displays the text “Hello World”. Has it come to your thought to ask why not just a simple “Hi” or “Hello” or “Good day!”? Probably yes, as during my time, I wondered a lot too.

Technically, the Hello World program has been traditionally used in learning basic programming. This was influenced by an example program in the seminal book “The C Programming Language” in which the example program prints “hello world”. Inherited from 1974, Bell Laboratories internal memorandum by Brian Kernighan, Programming in C: A Tutorial contained the first known version. (Wikipedia)

But still, why “Hello World”? Well, personally, I interpret it this way. Basically, programming depicts the reality. It has its own objects, behavior, methods just like a real world just in the weirdest way that only programmers understand. Yes, that’s why you may observe programmers do have their own world when they are in front of their PC -a complex world where only people like them could penetrate. They have their own language and wonderfully used it to communicate with the machine. If you are not a programmer then you can never understand.

Being a newbie in the world of programming, it is expected that you will be part of this complex technical world. And while you are starting to learn, it is like you are being made ready to be part of it. Like a newly born baby, you are welcomed in the world that you’re soon to explore with.

Hello World!

Welcome to the world of programming.

And so the next question..

Are you going to quit? Or

Are you going to survive?