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Hello World

July 25th, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments

Is there bigger cliché in computer science than "Hello World"? People have written billions of programs which emit this phrase in some form. It is ubiquitous in textbooks and online tutorials. WordPress even defaulted this inaugural post’s title to it. Why is this meme so prevalent in software?

I have always been fond of it. To me, it represents an abstract notion taking form. Someone is testing the waters of a way to express themselves. "Hello World" verifies your voice in the new medium.

Toward that end, welcome to Executable Intent.

Blogging has been at the top of the list of things I’d love to do but don’t for one reason or another. I look forward to writing with a perspective emphasizing rationale and explanation. The why of software is often buried in the how; decisions may be well-reasoned but remain inaccessible. A system is easier to understand through its purpose than its effects.

My focus is mainly on software craftsmanship and the .NET framework, with heavy doses of theory and speculation. Check back on the web or grab the RSS feed and let’s see where this goes!

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  • http://computingkeith.com/ Keith
    Hello, Bryan! > Why is this meme so prevalent in software? It makes sense as a re-usable meme, doesn’t it? Like “foo” or “bar” or my own personal not-favorite, “widgets,” we should no more re-invent the meme than invent new words because everyone uses the old so much. (Teenagers excepted.) > The why of software is often buried in the how So true. I probably spend most of my mentoring time as an architect getting code-slingers to realize that the code isn’t the whole story.
    • http://executableintent.wordpress.com Bryan Watts
      Hi Keith! Great to see you on my corner of the internet. I only raised a question about “Hello World” so I could answer it; I concur about its nature as a meme. I would be so sad if it went away :-) I wish you the best of luck slinger-wrangling.