While trying to think of something to write for a first post, I noticed that by default, WordPress creates a post for you called “Hello World.” For those that are coders, this phrase probably invokes memories of your first computer program that ran. For those that aren’t, for some reason, this phrase has been traditionally used as the output of a new coder’s first program.
If you Google for “Hello World!”, you’ll get hundreds of results relating from setting up a OrientDB cluster, to creating your first Scala program. With the explosion of dynamic languages in the last few years, “How do I create a Hello World” has reached almost meme status. The phrase is so pervasive, finding the true origin has lead me across the internet until finally I came to the entry in Wikipedia which states, “[Hello World] was inherited from a 1974 Bell Laboratories internal memorandum by Brian Kernighan, Programming in C: A Tutorial, which contains the first known version.”
It is interesting how such a simple program has evolved into a standard right of passage for new languages. I think back to the first time I saw that phrase in a C programming class in college, and thinking how strange it was that the professor chose that phrase. Later when I reported it to a coworker, he said, “Yep, that’s everyone’s first program. It’s so simple, it’s only downhill from here…” Almost 10 years later, I found my answer.
My name is Jonathan, this is my Hello World! Thanks for reading.
