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A better Hello World
Software Development
fill dark A different “hello world” to demonstrate language features better.

Source: RICO STA. CRUZ

The “Hello world” program is usually the first introduction to any programming language. It looks like this in the C programming language:

/* hello.c */
#import <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
  printf("Hello, world!");
  return 0;
}

It demonstrates the minimum amount you need to write a C program. In more modern languages however, this example isnt as useful anymore. Heres the same example in Python:

# hello.py
print "Hello, world!"

A better hello world

In todays world of more succint programming languages, we need a different “hello world” to demonstrate language features better. Heres what I propose:

// hello.js
function getGreeting (name) {
  return `Hello, ${name}!`
}

const message = getGreeting('world')
console.log(message)

This simple example demonstrates a few more things than printing strings:

  • How to write a function with an argument
  • Returning values from functions
  • How to use variables
  • The naming convention for functions (camelCase versus snake_case)
  • String concatenation
  • Comments