I thought the 'Hello World' thing was just a dumb joke until my friend in Chicago made me type it out and I saw the console print it.

Seeing that text appear on my own screen after hitting run made the whole 'code does stuff' idea click for me, so what was the first tiny program that made you feel like you got it?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_miller223mo ago

Wait, you really needed to see "Hello World" to get it? That's like needing training wheels forever. My first real win was making a script that actually fixed a problem, not just printing words.

victorb513mo ago

What problem did your first script solve? I got hooked after automating a super boring file renaming task.

elizabeth4381mo ago

Anyone who brags about skipping Hello World probably spent three hours debugging a missing semicolon on their first real script. That "training wheels" comment is rich coming from someone who likely celebrated their first conditional statement like it was a miracle. Yeah, printing words seems stupid until you realize half the code out there is just formatting strings into a terminal anyway. Most beginners jump too fast into something complicated and give up when it breaks. Hello World is cheap therapy for that moment where you realize the computer actually listens for one second.