It is the most famous program. To every programmer, it is considered the first example of almost every programming language, so where did this message come from?
As a function, the computer program simply tells the computer to display “Hello, World!” . Traditionally, it is the first program a developer uses to test a system. For programmers, seeing these two words on the screen means that their code can compile, load, and run, and they can see the output.
It is a test, symbolizing the beginning of a program. In the past few decades, it has become a time-honored tradition. At some point, all programmers before you get a rush of adrenaline when they realize they’ve successfully communicated with a computer. Here’s how two of the most famous words in app history came to be:
Where does’ Hello World ‘come from?
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Brian Kernighan (the handsome guy in the photo above) created “Hello, World” and is the author of a widely read book (1978’s C Programming Language). He used Hello World for the first time in the precursor of C Programming Language (INTRODUCTION to B Programming Language published in 1973).
main( ) { extrn a, b, c; putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); Putchar ('! * n '); 1 'hell'}; 'o, b w'; C 'orld';
Unfortunately, the legend himself couldn’t quite put his finger on when or why he chose “Hello, World.” When asked in an interview with Forbes India what inspired him to use the name “Hello, World,” he said his memory was vague. “What I remember is I saw a cartoon with an egg and a hen in it, and the hen said, ‘Hello, World’.”
Given that “Hello, World” represents the birth of computer programming as a common phenomenon for the general public, this group of words is appropriate.
At the time, Kernighan and his colleague Dennis Ritchie, the late father of THE C language, had no idea how important the language and tutorials would be to today’s programming world. These ideas are just a research project at Bell LABS, a research and development division of AT&T.
While no one can scientifically explain why “Hello, World” has become so popular, the “Hello, World” program marks a significant shift in the historical tone of programming. Let’s take a look at its historical background.
The dawning
Although it’s hard to imagine today, before Kernighan’s book “Hello World”, before the 1970s, computers had a pejorative connotation in the public mind. They are huge machines, very slow, take up whole rooms and require full-time maintenance by scientists or researchers. In fact, until the late 1970s, computer scientists programmed with stacks of punch cards.
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Computers are widely seen as unreachable, complex and outrageously expensive devices reserved for the academic elite, defence or government. In fact, industry giants dedicated to the world of computing have worked hard to wash away the stigma. It’s amazing to think how far we’ve come to actually feel anxious without our personal devices.
One of the notable first uses of computers occurred in the United States in 1890, when automated spreadsheets calculated data for more than 60 million Americans. In the 1940s, Bombes and the Colossus computers decrypted German telegraph codes during World War II.
The first commercial computers for arithmetic came in the 1950s, like the Zuse 3 and the UNIVAC, but you needed millions of dollars to buy one.
From an educational standpoint, many books on early programming languages (like FORTRAN or BASIC) begin with the idea that computers are actually useful. This is according to a paper by computational jurist and researcher John Mount. Mount says the explosive popularity of “Hello, World” is a sign of an era in which computer scientists no longer feel they need to convince society that computer utilities are tangible.
For example, in My Computer Likes Me When I Speak Basic (1964), the introductory section talks broadly about the intent of programming languages. In addition, the first example exports: “MY HUMAN expression ME.” This example was used to reinforce the less popular idea that humans can actually talk to computers. Dynamic programming in 1956 began to use examples that could be applied to ordinary computing.
It wasn’t until the C Programming Language came along that “Hello World” really took off.
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Hello World is coming
One of the main catalysts that triggered the spread of “Hello World” was the parallel introduction of the PDP-11, one of the first commercially successful microcomputers. In total, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) sold more than 600,000 PDP-11s for $10,000 each, well below the price of computers that typically cost millions of dollars. In addition, the pdP-11’s 16-bit series does not require punched cards. For the first time you could talk directly to a computer using a programming language.
But in an effort to increase public acceptance, DEC cannot mention that it is a computer. DEC marketed it as a “program-controlled data processor”, distancing itself from the mainframe computers of the past. As more people bought programmable computers, demand for the C Programming Language soared.
The C and Unix operating systems first became popular on the PDP-11. So the ensuing rush of commercial computers supporting the new C programming language drove hundreds of thousands of people to read the 200-page C Programming Language. This reintroduces’ Hello World ‘.
Since the 1980s and 1990s, almost every programmer working on desktop software has owned a copy or reference to that book. Millions of copies have been sold so far.
There are many different basic programs available to start learning programming, but ‘Hello World’ is by far the most famous. Every programmer remembers their first ‘Hello World’ and uses it as a ritual to begin programming. Many people may not realize it, but the sweet, triumphant feeling they feel every time a programmer clears the first hurdle of programming with the words’ Hello World ‘is a transcendence.