History of 'Hello World' | Where does it come from ?

I still remember C was the first programming language I learn, and after that I keep going on with other languages like Javascript, c++, c#, Asp.Net and now Salesforce.

The one thing I found common in all these languages was my first program, I still remember my first program was always Hello World, wether it’s c, c++, c# pr even in Javascript ‘Hello World’ is always the first program.

So recently I have been learning Lightning Web Components, and can you guess what was the first lightning component I built ? Yes, it was hello world.

Ever wondered why every programming language tutorial starts with the first program to print ‘Hello World’. So I dig a little deep to find out the history of the Hello World.

“Hello, World” was created by Brian Kernighan, author of one of the most widely read programming books C Programming Language in 1978. In the C Programming Language book he used the “Hello, World!” As a test message, and it becomes a tradition to be followed by every other program.

main( ) {

        printf("hello, world\n");
}

In the above example, the main( ) function defines where the program should start executing. The function body consists of a single statement, a call to the printf function, which stands for "print formatted".

But hello world was not introduced in the C language first, it was introduced Brian Kernighan’s own A tutorial introduction to the Language B in 1973

B is a programming language developed at Bell Labs around 1969 and is a simplified successor to an even older language called BCPL. It was in 1972 that Kernighan was tasked with writing a manual for using B that was to be used internally at Bell Labs. This memorandum, titled A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B, is the first documented instance of “Hello, World!” in all of programming cannon.

main( ) {
    extern a, b, c;
    putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
}

a 'hell';
b 'o, w';
c 'orld';

The program also prints hello, world! on the terminal, including a newline character. The phrase is divided into multiple variables because in B, a character constant is limited to four ASCII characters.

Unfortunately, the legend himself can’t definitely pinpoint when or why he chose the words “Hello, World.” When asked what sparked the idea for the name “Hello, World” in interview with Forbes India

he said “What I do remember is that I had seen a cartoon that showed an egg and a chick and the chick was saying, “Hello, World.”

At the time, neither Kernighan nor his colleague Dennis Ritchie, the late author of the C language, could imagine just how monumental the language and the tutorial book would have on the field of programming today. These ideas were nothing but a research project inside Bell Labs, the research and development branch of AT&T.

Although no one can scientifically explain why “Hello, World,” grew to become wildly popular

It became a standard for new programmers after it appeared in Kernighan and Ritchie, which is probably the best selling introduction to programming of all time.

So guys this was the history of Hello World ! If you like this video then a subscribe to the channel will be awesome.

Source : Google & Wikipedia

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