How "Hello, World!" Became Every Programmer’s First Code

Origins of the "Hello, World!" tradition

When learning to program, the first program most beginners write prints the phrase "Hello, World!". This convention dates back to the early 1970s and has become a cultural hallmark of programming education.

1972: The B‑language introduction

In 1972, Brian Kernighan at Bell Labs authored an internal memo titled A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B , where he first used the string "Hello World". To demonstrate external variables, he wrote a B‑language program that split the phrase into three variables because each character constant could hold only four ASCII characters.

main() {
    extern a, b, c;
    putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
}
a 'hell';
b 'o, w';
c 'orld';

This program prints "hello, world" followed by a newline.

1974: Transition to C and the K&R example

By 1974, the C language was supplanting B. Kernighan wrote another internal memo, Programming in C: A Tutorial , which included a C version of the Hello World program. The same example later appeared in the seminal book The C Programming Language (1978) by Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

int main() {
    printf("hello, world
");
    return 0;
}

In this code, main() defines the program’s entry point, and the single printf call outputs the literal string.

Why the phrase endures

Since then, "Hello, World!" has become a standard teaching example, symbolizing the moment a learner’s code first produces visible output. It marks the entry point into the world of programming and carries historical and cultural significance across dozens of programming languages.

Below are examples of the Hello World program in various languages:

These examples illustrate how the simple phrase has been adapted across many programming languages, reinforcing its role as a universal entry point for new coders.