Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Arrezz 2355 days ago
What is the history of the Hello World example program? I'm not sure why it's become this defacto example of syntax for every language. Maybe there is something else we could use as an example that would be more indicative of syntax but perhaps I'm overthinking it.
2 comments

Brian Kernighan, 1972, A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B.

And yeah, I think it's an okay intro to syntax because at least it shows you the minimum boilerplate to get some output.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Hello,_World!%22_program

I have always thought it first appeared in K&R, but I do not know where I got that from.