Hello, world!

As I mention on the home page, my love for coding started back in the 1980s on a Commodore Plus/4.

If you've coded anything in your life, I bet the first thing you did was to get it to print something along the lines of 'Hello', or your name, on the screen. I certainly remember doing so.

10 PRINT "HELLO"
RUN

First program on a Commodore Plus/4

That then probably progressed to an infinite loop of it up the screen. Wow!

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Second program on a Commodore Plus/4

Am I right?

For those wanting to try out some retro coding, Plus4emu is available on Sourceforge.

Now days, Microsoft have done the work for us. You've only got to create a new console app and the default template contains one file, Program.cs, containing the following:

// See https://aka.ms/new-console-template for more information
Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

Hello, world! in a .net console app

It's kind of taken the 'wow' factor away from it.

Of course we can always go for a loop again...

while (true)
    Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");

Hello, world! loop in a .net console app

Over the years, these simple programs have inspired many of us to delve deeper into the world of coding. For some it's a hobby, others like me, a profession.

I leave you with one question. What was your first program?