WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 You know, when you step up to a podium to give 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:04.960 a big speech, you don't just like immediately 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.379 launch right into your opening sentence. What's 00:00:07.379 --> 00:00:10.320 the very first thing you do? Oh, you lean in, 00:00:10.460 --> 00:00:12.179 tap the microphone, maybe blow into it a little 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:15.099 bit. Right. You ask, is this thing on? Exactly. 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:18.440 And that deeply human need to make sure the pipes 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:21.960 are connected before we turn on the water, it's 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:25.339 universal. We need to know the basic machinery 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:27.579 is functioning before we pour our hearts out 00:00:27.579 --> 00:00:30.500 to the audience. Yeah, for sure. And that exact 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:34.020 instinct is why, for the last 50 years, almost 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:36.560 every software developer on Earth has started 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:39.799 their programming journey with two simple words. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.000 Hello, world. It really is the ultimate sanity 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:45.000 check. I mean, you aren't really trying to communicate 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:46.619 with the world. You're just proving to yourself 00:00:46.619 --> 00:00:48.359 that the compiler is running, the software is 00:00:48.359 --> 00:00:51.340 actually installed, and the basic pathways of 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:53.039 communication between you and the machine are 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:56.560 open. Right, so today, for you, our listener, 00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:00.119 we are going to do a custom -tailored deep dive 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:03.719 to unpack how this tiny, seemingly trivial snippet 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:07.569 of code became a global standard. because hello 00:01:07.569 --> 00:01:10.670 world isn't just a greeting, it's really a mirror 00:01:10.670 --> 00:01:13.069 reflecting the evolution of technology itself. 00:01:13.250 --> 00:01:15.549 What's fascinating here is that while this presents 00:01:15.549 --> 00:01:18.109 itself as a basic syntax exercise for beginners, 00:01:18.569 --> 00:01:21.090 it actually acts as a perfect lens to view the 00:01:21.090 --> 00:01:23.650 entire history of human computer interaction. 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:25.629 Oh, totally. If you look at how different programming 00:01:25.629 --> 00:01:28.709 languages handle this one simple task, you instantly 00:01:28.709 --> 00:01:31.230 see the friction, the hardware limitations, and 00:01:31.230 --> 00:01:33.290 like the specific philosophies of the people 00:01:33.290 --> 00:01:35.730 who built them. Yeah, so to understand how this 00:01:35.629 --> 00:01:37.810 specific phrase conquered the globe. We have 00:01:37.810 --> 00:01:39.670 to look at where it came from. And that means 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:42.370 stepping back in time, away from the sleek, high 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:45.189 -powered laptops of today, and into the buzzing, 00:01:45.469 --> 00:01:47.989 humming, physically massive computer rooms of 00:01:47.989 --> 00:01:51.310 early Bell Labs in the 1970s. Right. The birthplace 00:01:51.310 --> 00:01:53.469 of so much of our modern computing infrastructure. 00:01:53.989 --> 00:01:55.909 And the tradition was largely popularized by 00:01:55.909 --> 00:01:58.930 a famously influential 1978 book called The TC 00:01:58.930 --> 00:02:01.349 Programming Language. By Brian Kernahan and Dennis 00:02:01.349 --> 00:02:04.299 Ritchie. Right. Yep. Exactly. In that book, the 00:02:04.299 --> 00:02:07.579 very first example program prints, hello world, 00:02:08.219 --> 00:02:10.599 in all lowercase letters. But the trail actually 00:02:10.599 --> 00:02:14.340 goes back even further than that 1978 book. Kernaghan 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:18.419 was using it in a 1974 internal Bell Labs memo 00:02:18.419 --> 00:02:22.509 titled Programming in C. a tutorial. Right, right. 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:24.469 And if we dig all the way down to the bedrock, 00:02:24.770 --> 00:02:27.810 we find the absolute first documented use of 00:02:27.810 --> 00:02:32.009 the phrase in computing. It was in a 1972 tutorial. 00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:34.750 Kernaghan wrote for an earlier programming language 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:37.430 simply called B. Which was the direct predecessor 00:02:37.430 --> 00:02:40.110 to C. And the reason he chose that specific phrase 00:02:40.110 --> 00:02:43.689 in 1972 was not out of some poetic desire to 00:02:43.689 --> 00:02:45.550 greet the universe. He was actually trying to 00:02:45.550 --> 00:02:48.590 teach around a brutal hardware limitation. Computers 00:02:48.590 --> 00:02:50.870 back then had memory capacity so small we can 00:02:50.870 --> 00:02:53.389 barely comprehend them today. Every single byte 00:02:53.389 --> 00:02:55.770 of storage was precious real estate. Here's where 00:02:55.770 --> 00:02:58.590 it gets really interesting. Because of those 00:02:58.590 --> 00:03:01.669 severe hardware constraints, the B programming 00:03:01.669 --> 00:03:04.250 language had this bizarre technical limitation. 00:03:05.150 --> 00:03:07.889 A character constant was physically limited to 00:03:07.889 --> 00:03:10.789 just four ASCII characters. Four characters, 00:03:10.830 --> 00:03:12.830 that's it. Meaning the computer could only hold 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:15.270 four letters in a specific memory container at 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:17.169 one time. You couldn't just tell the machine 00:03:17.169 --> 00:03:19.530 to remember a whole sentence. No, it would completely 00:03:19.530 --> 00:03:21.909 overload the memory register. Yeah. So in the 00:03:21.909 --> 00:03:24.550 tutorial, the very first example Kernane used 00:03:24.550 --> 00:03:27.780 simply printed, Hi. Just hi. Yeah, that's three 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:30.379 characters an H and I and an exclamation point 00:03:30.379 --> 00:03:32.379 it fit perfectly into that four character limit 00:03:32.379 --> 00:03:35.439 But like hi doesn't teach a student how to manage 00:03:35.439 --> 00:03:38.620 complex data Kernan wanted to teach programmers 00:03:38.620 --> 00:03:41.219 how to string multiple variables together to 00:03:41.219 --> 00:03:45.060 form a cohesive output So he introduced hello 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.719 world Which if you include the new line character 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:50.199 at the end to move the cursor down is much longer 00:03:50.199 --> 00:03:52.439 than four characters, right? He deliberately 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:55.580 created an obstacle Exactly. It specifically 00:03:55.580 --> 00:03:58.060 forced the programmer to chop the greeting up. 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.639 They had to store hell in one variable, ow in 00:04:01.639 --> 00:04:04.039 another, orl in another, and then stitch them 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:06.520 all back together on the screen. It's wild. The 00:04:06.520 --> 00:04:09.270 most famous greeting in digital history... exists 00:04:09.270 --> 00:04:13.110 primarily because high was too short to be a 00:04:13.110 --> 00:04:15.250 good homework assignment. He needed a phrase 00:04:15.250 --> 00:04:17.629 just long enough to break the system's four -character 00:04:17.629 --> 00:04:19.509 limit so you could show you the mechanism for 00:04:19.509 --> 00:04:21.930 fixing it. I love the practicality of that so 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:24.670 much. Now, like all great computing lore, the 00:04:24.670 --> 00:04:27.389 origins are slightly contested. The famous jargon 00:04:27.389 --> 00:04:30.389 file, which is a glossary of hacker slang, traces 00:04:30.389 --> 00:04:32.850 the conceptual origin back a few years earlier 00:04:32.850 --> 00:04:36.410 to 1967 with a language called BCPL. Which heavily 00:04:36.410 --> 00:04:38.759 influenced the B language. Right. But outside 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.100 of computing entirely, the exact phrase, hello 00:04:41.100 --> 00:04:44.120 world, has a totally analog origin. It was actually 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:46.720 the trademark catchphrase of a New York radio 00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:49.379 disc jockey named William B. Williams, starting 00:04:49.379 --> 00:04:52.879 way back in the 1950s. Wow. Yeah. Long before 00:04:52.879 --> 00:04:54.600 programmers were typing it into green screen 00:04:54.600 --> 00:04:57.579 terminals, it was echoing across the radio waves 00:04:57.579 --> 00:05:01.160 to millions of listeners. It's just such a bizarre 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:05.500 collision of cultures. A 1950s radio DJ catchphrase 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:08.920 eventually becomes the solution to a 1970s Bell 00:05:08.920 --> 00:05:11.579 Labs memory constraint. Yeah. Which then becomes 00:05:11.579 --> 00:05:14.120 the universal standard for coding. It's amazing. 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:16.680 Okay, let's impact this a bit more. We know when 00:05:16.680 --> 00:05:19.480 and why it was born. But how do different languages 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:22.899 tackle this exact same prompt today? Because 00:05:22.899 --> 00:05:25.600 comparing them reveals vast differences in how 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:28.079 computer languages are architected. Oh, completely. 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:30.399 For instance, if you sit down to learn a modern 00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:32.600 scripting language like Python, getting your 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:35.240 computer to say hello is delightfully frictionless. 00:05:35.459 --> 00:05:38.079 It takes exactly one line of code. You type print, 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:41.459 open a parenthesis, put, hello world, in quotes, 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:44.040 and you're done. the computer speaks, but then 00:05:44.040 --> 00:05:46.600 you contrast Python with a language like C++. 00:05:46.819 --> 00:05:49.740 Right. C++ is, well, it's the heavy machinery 00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:51.959 of the programming world. To do the exact same 00:05:51.959 --> 00:05:54.680 thing, just print those two words. C++ makes 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:57.019 you jump through hoops. You have to write a line 00:05:57.019 --> 00:06:00.740 to import the C++ standard and output stream 00:06:00.740 --> 00:06:03.500 library. Then you have to declare an entry point. 00:06:03.689 --> 00:06:06.029 which is the main function. Then you have to 00:06:06.029 --> 00:06:09.589 write a specific command std .cout to push the 00:06:09.589 --> 00:06:12.029 text to the output console, followed by another 00:06:12.029 --> 00:06:14.589 command to return a zero to the operating system 00:06:14.589 --> 00:06:17.610 to prove the program ran without crashing. It 00:06:17.610 --> 00:06:19.670 looks like a whole paragraph of technical jargon 00:06:19.670 --> 00:06:22.259 just to say hello. Right. And honestly, I have 00:06:22.259 --> 00:06:24.420 to push back on this design philosophy a little. 00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:27.439 If Python can do it in one intuitive line, and 00:06:27.439 --> 00:06:30.100 C++ requires all this boilerplate, all these 00:06:30.100 --> 00:06:32.000 extra steps and imports just to accomplish the 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.839 exact same task, doesn't that make C++ a fundamentally 00:06:35.839 --> 00:06:39.579 worse tool? Like, why use a language that makes 00:06:39.579 --> 00:06:42.439 the simplest task so incredibly complicated? 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:44.920 Well, you know, every new programmer asks that 00:06:44.920 --> 00:06:46.620 exact question when they stare at their first 00:06:46.620 --> 00:06:49.560 C++ moment. But if we connect this to the bigger 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.560 picture, complexity is not necessarily a flaw. 00:06:52.939 --> 00:06:55.220 It's really a reflection of language's intended 00:06:55.220 --> 00:06:58.339 power, and specifically, it's proximity to the 00:06:58.339 --> 00:07:00.560 actual physical hardware. Wait, when you say 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.319 proximity to the hardware, do you mean C++ is 00:07:03.319 --> 00:07:06.459 actually talking directly to the physical microchips 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:09.259 while Python is going through some kind of translator? 00:07:09.420 --> 00:07:11.120 That is a great way to think about it, yeah. 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:14.350 Imagine ordering takeout. versus working in a 00:07:14.350 --> 00:07:17.110 commercial kitchen. Python is ordering takeout. 00:07:17.230 --> 00:07:20.430 You tell an app, bring me a pizza. and an hour 00:07:20.430 --> 00:07:23.209 later, a pizza arrives at your door. You don't 00:07:23.209 --> 00:07:24.889 have to worry about chopping onions, preheating 00:07:24.889 --> 00:07:27.649 the oven, or sourcing the cheese. Python hides 00:07:27.649 --> 00:07:29.850 all the complex memory allocation and hardware 00:07:29.850 --> 00:07:31.949 instructions from you, so you can just focus 00:07:31.949 --> 00:07:33.910 on the final product. Which is great if you just 00:07:33.910 --> 00:07:37.370 want a quick pizza. Exactly. Right. But C++ is 00:07:37.370 --> 00:07:40.129 walking into a massive, industrial commercial 00:07:40.129 --> 00:07:42.889 kitchen. If you want a pizza in that kitchen, 00:07:42.970 --> 00:07:45.810 you have to manually turn on the gas lines, you 00:07:45.810 --> 00:07:48.189 have to allocate the exact amount of flour, you 00:07:48.189 --> 00:07:50.490 have to actively... the oven temperature. That 00:07:50.490 --> 00:07:53.430 sounds exhaust. For a single pizza, or in this 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:57.189 case, printing, hello world, it is an exhausting, 00:07:57.509 --> 00:08:00.740 overcomplicated nightmare. But if you're trying 00:08:00.740 --> 00:08:03.939 to feed 10 ,000 people simultaneously, like building 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:06.120 a high -performance 3D video game engine or a 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:08.920 new operating system, you absolutely need that 00:08:08.920 --> 00:08:12.480 granular absolute control over every single gas 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:16.300 line and ingredient. C++ forces you to be explicit 00:08:16.300 --> 00:08:19.259 about memory and execution from line one, because 00:08:19.259 --> 00:08:21.720 it's preparing you for industrial scale work. 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:23.899 That makes perfect sense. The language is setting 00:08:23.899 --> 00:08:26.339 the terms of engagement early on. And speaking 00:08:26.339 --> 00:08:29.420 of which, languages often use Hello World to 00:08:29.420 --> 00:08:31.579 show off their specific superpowers right out 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:33.940 of the gate. Well, for sure. Look at the Go programming 00:08:33.940 --> 00:08:36.539 language. In their introductory tutorial, the 00:08:36.539 --> 00:08:40.159 Hello World program emits text in English, Chinese, 00:08:40.299 --> 00:08:42.460 and Japanese simultaneously. Right. It isn't 00:08:42.460 --> 00:08:44.980 just saying hello. It's proving a technical capability. 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:47.700 Right. Go was designed with native Unicode support 00:08:47.700 --> 00:08:50.059 built directly into the language, meaning it 00:08:50.059 --> 00:08:52.250 understands global alphabet. without requiring 00:08:52.250 --> 00:08:55.289 developers to download extra translation plugins. 00:08:55.529 --> 00:08:58.230 It's flexing its muscles on day one. Then you 00:08:58.230 --> 00:09:01.610 have Rust. Rust is a language intensely focused 00:09:01.610 --> 00:09:04.470 on safety, structure, and preventing memory leaks. 00:09:05.169 --> 00:09:07.669 Its built -in package manager automatically generates 00:09:07.669 --> 00:09:11.330 a perfectly formatted hello world program the 00:09:11.330 --> 00:09:14.029 absolute second you create a new project folder. 00:09:14.070 --> 00:09:15.590 That's convenient. Yeah, you don't even have 00:09:15.590 --> 00:09:17.490 to type it. It's just sitting there waiting to 00:09:17.490 --> 00:09:20.590 be compiled. It acts as an immediate sanity check. 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:22.820 before you even touch the keyboard. But we also 00:09:22.820 --> 00:09:24.639 have to look at the dark side of this spectrum, 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:28.440 the esoteric languages. Oh, man. We have to talk 00:09:28.440 --> 00:09:30.639 about Malbolge. Yes. For those listening who 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:33.679 aren't familiar, Malbolge is an esoteric programming 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:36.379 language explicitly designed by its creator to 00:09:36.379 --> 00:09:39.200 be as difficult to use as humanly possible. It's 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:42.120 awful. It is a puzzle of computational pain. 00:09:42.740 --> 00:09:45.159 It took two full years after the language was 00:09:45.159 --> 00:09:47.279 released to the public before the very first 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:50.200 working hello world. program was announced. Two 00:09:50.200 --> 00:09:52.419 years. Just to get a computer to print a greeting. 00:09:52.860 --> 00:09:55.940 Two years. And mind -blowingly, a human being 00:09:55.940 --> 00:09:59.539 didn't even write it. No. The syntax is so chaotic 00:09:59.539 --> 00:10:02.179 and non -intuitive that a human couldn't figure 00:10:02.179 --> 00:10:05.539 it out. The code was actually produced by a separate 00:10:05.539 --> 00:10:08.220 algorithm written in an entirely different language 00:10:08.220 --> 00:10:11.299 called Common Lisp, which basically brute -forced 00:10:11.299 --> 00:10:13.860 its way into finding the right sequence of symbols. 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:16.980 And after all that monumental effort, the output 00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:19.659 it produced was slightly mangled. It printed, 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.080 hello world, with strange, inconsistent capitalization. 00:10:24.799 --> 00:10:27.679 That horror story perfectly highlights a crucial 00:10:27.679 --> 00:10:30.220 concept in the tech industry. I mean, if a language 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:32.600 takes two years to print a greeting, you have 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:35.200 a massive usability problem. And this brings 00:10:35.200 --> 00:10:38.039 us to a vital industry metric, time to hello 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:41.759 world or TTHW. Time to hello world. I love that 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:43.759 the industry took this inside joke and turned 00:10:43.759 --> 00:10:46.019 it into an actual measurable metric for success. 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:48.779 It's brilliant. TTHW is exactly what it sounds 00:10:48.779 --> 00:10:50.700 like. It's the amount of time it takes a completely 00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:53.700 new user to author and successfully run a hello 00:10:53.700 --> 00:10:56.059 world program in a given programming language 00:10:56.059 --> 00:10:58.539 or environment. It serves as a strict parameter 00:10:58.539 --> 00:11:01.340 for approachability. I mean, think about your 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:03.679 own workflow for a second. The last time you 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:05.940 downloaded a new app or tried a new piece of 00:11:05.940 --> 00:11:08.659 software at your job, how quickly could you get 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:11.860 a basic win? How fast could you do the simplest 00:11:11.860 --> 00:11:13.799 possible thing this software was designed to 00:11:13.799 --> 00:11:16.360 do? Well, if you open a new tool and it takes 00:11:16.360 --> 00:11:19.139 you like three hours just to figure out how to 00:11:19.139 --> 00:11:21.080 create a blank document, you're going to close 00:11:21.080 --> 00:11:23.200 the window and find a different tool. Exactly. 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:26.419 The human brain craves that early dopamine hit 00:11:26.419 --> 00:11:29.720 of success. A shorter time to hello world indicates 00:11:29.720 --> 00:11:32.600 an easier adoption curves. It means the creators 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:35.039 of the language have successfully removed the 00:11:35.039 --> 00:11:37.240 early friction. And what is really interesting 00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:39.580 is that this concept has expanded far beyond 00:11:39.580 --> 00:11:43.000 just programming languages. PTHW is now widely 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.639 used to measure API's application programming 00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:48.240 interfaces. So when a tech company releases a 00:11:48.240 --> 00:11:51.159 new API, say, a tool for processing credit card 00:11:51.159 --> 00:11:53.220 payments on a website or pulling live weather 00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:55.679 data into a mobile app, they're actually tracking 00:11:55.679 --> 00:11:58.679 how fast a new developer can get a basic successful 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:01.730 test transaction running. Precisely. If a payment 00:12:01.730 --> 00:12:04.649 processor's API requires a developer to read 00:12:04.649 --> 00:12:08.269 50 pages of documentation just to process a fake 00:12:08.269 --> 00:12:11.289 $1 test charge, their time to hello world is 00:12:11.289 --> 00:12:13.710 too long. Yeah, nobody is reading that. Right. 00:12:14.009 --> 00:12:16.230 Developers will literally just choose a competitor's 00:12:16.230 --> 00:12:19.470 API. It has become a metric of survival in the 00:12:19.470 --> 00:12:21.649 tech marketplace. Make your microphone easy to 00:12:21.649 --> 00:12:23.820 tap. or no one will bother speaking into it. 00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:26.539 So if the entire tech industry is obsessed with 00:12:26.539 --> 00:12:29.419 making time to Hello World as fast and painless 00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:32.259 as possible, it begs a massive question. OK. 00:12:32.659 --> 00:12:35.720 Why do some modern programming environments intentionally 00:12:35.720 --> 00:12:38.299 make it impossible to print those words at all? 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.419 This is where Hello World transcends text and 00:12:42.419 --> 00:12:44.360 becomes an abstract concept. You start running 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:46.580 into environments where printing text either 00:12:46.580 --> 00:12:48.419 goes against the fundamental philosophy of the 00:12:48.419 --> 00:12:50.940 language or is blocked by the physical reality 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:52.809 of the hardware. Right, let's start with the 00:12:52.809 --> 00:12:54.909 philosophical holdouts. There's a whole branch 00:12:54.909 --> 00:12:57.210 of computing called functional programming languages 00:12:57.210 --> 00:13:01.009 like Lisp, ML, and Haskell. Now, I'm not a functional 00:13:01.009 --> 00:13:03.470 programming expert, but from what I understand, 00:13:04.009 --> 00:13:06.750 these languages operate on very strict mathematical 00:13:06.750 --> 00:13:10.110 purity. They do, yeah. In pure functional programming, 00:13:10.330 --> 00:13:13.289 functions are supposed to act like sealed pristine 00:13:13.289 --> 00:13:16.169 mathematical boxes. You put a specific input 00:13:16.169 --> 00:13:18.690 into the box, and you get a specific output. 00:13:19.309 --> 00:13:21.350 Crucially, the function is not supposed to cause 00:13:21.350 --> 00:13:23.529 any side effects in the outside world. Wait, 00:13:23.730 --> 00:13:26.490 so just displaying a word on a screen is considered 00:13:26.490 --> 00:13:28.629 breaking the rules. How is that a side effect? 00:13:28.929 --> 00:13:31.750 Well, because to display the word hello, the 00:13:31.750 --> 00:13:33.549 computer has to physically alter the state of 00:13:33.549 --> 00:13:35.669 its monitor. It has to change the color of the 00:13:35.669 --> 00:13:38.429 pixels. It's reaching outside of its sealed mathematical 00:13:38.429 --> 00:13:41.190 box to manipulate the external environment. Oh, 00:13:41.190 --> 00:13:44.009 wow. Yeah. So in this strict, pure, functional 00:13:44.009 --> 00:13:46.669 programming community, traditional input -output 00:13:46.669 --> 00:13:49.649 operations like printing text to a console are 00:13:49.649 --> 00:13:52.070 frowned upon in early learning stages because 00:13:52.070 --> 00:13:54.610 they teach bad habits. So they don't use Hello 00:13:54.610 --> 00:13:57.870 World at all. Instead, the typical introductory 00:13:57.870 --> 00:14:00.909 program for these languages is a factorial calculator. 00:14:01.730 --> 00:14:04.250 They substitute a recursive math problem for 00:14:04.250 --> 00:14:07.330 a greeting because calculating a factorial perfectly 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:10.230 demonstrates the recursive, side -effect -free 00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.299 nature of the language without ever needing to 00:14:13.299 --> 00:14:16.179 alter the state of a monitor. Exactly. The sanity 00:14:16.179 --> 00:14:19.019 check changes to match the cultural values of 00:14:19.019 --> 00:14:21.159 the community. Okay, so philosophical purity 00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:24.139 is one reason to abandon the text greeting. Physical 00:14:24.139 --> 00:14:26.759 reality is the other. Let's talk about hardware. 00:14:27.500 --> 00:14:29.620 For embedded systems, text isn't just frowned 00:14:29.620 --> 00:14:32.620 upon, it's often physically impossible. Oh, definitely. 00:14:32.909 --> 00:14:35.710 We're talking about microcontrollers, field -programmable 00:14:35.710 --> 00:14:38.809 gate arrays, complex programmable logic devices, 00:14:39.250 --> 00:14:41.889 the tiny computing chips hidden inside everyday 00:14:41.889 --> 00:14:44.029 objects. Right, the computers running your washing 00:14:44.029 --> 00:14:46.549 machine or your microwave or the fuel injection 00:14:46.549 --> 00:14:49.269 system in your car engine. Those chips don't 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:51.190 have keyboards attached to them. No, not at all. 00:14:51.269 --> 00:14:53.429 They don't have screens. There is no console 00:14:53.429 --> 00:14:55.769 to print to. So how do you know the chip is actually 00:14:55.769 --> 00:14:57.889 processing your code? It's like trying to find 00:14:57.889 --> 00:15:00.190 a pulse on a patient. You just need a sign of 00:15:00.190 --> 00:15:03.700 life. So for these headless physical devices, 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:07.240 the Hello World equivalent is universally a blinking 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:10.679 LED, a single flashing light. It's so elegant. 00:15:10.860 --> 00:15:14.460 It really is. Making a tiny LED blink on a circuit 00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:17.179 board proves so much behind the scenes. It proves 00:15:17.179 --> 00:15:19.519 that the code compiled correctly on your laptop. 00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:21.940 It proves that the code successfully transferred 00:15:21.940 --> 00:15:24.940 over the serial cable to the chip. It proves 00:15:24.940 --> 00:15:27.399 that the chip's internal clock timings are accurate 00:15:27.399 --> 00:15:29.700 and that the physical processor pins are firing 00:15:29.700 --> 00:15:31.759 electrical current exactly when you tell them 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:34.700 to. It is the ultimate bare -metal sanity check. 00:15:34.840 --> 00:15:37.240 The concept is so incredibly adaptable, and it 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:39.179 doesn't stop at physical hardware either. It 00:15:39.179 --> 00:15:41.409 shifts visually as well. In the early days of 00:15:41.409 --> 00:15:44.230 Java, Sun Microsystems created a Hello World 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:47.129 program based entirely on scalable vector graphics. 00:15:47.429 --> 00:15:50.429 The Excel programming language introduces itself 00:15:50.429 --> 00:15:53.570 to new developers with a spinning 3D computer 00:15:53.570 --> 00:15:55.850 graphic of the Earth. And if you're learning 00:15:55.850 --> 00:15:58.610 computer graphics libraries, you know, the tools 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:01.250 used to build modern video games, the equivalent 00:16:01.250 --> 00:16:04.149 isn't text. It's rendering a simple, brightly 00:16:04.149 --> 00:16:07.019 colored shape known as the Hello Triangle. So 00:16:07.019 --> 00:16:09.759 what does this all mean? The phrase has morphed 00:16:09.759 --> 00:16:12.860 from four character memory chunks in the 1970s 00:16:12.860 --> 00:16:16.139 to blinking LEDs on a circuit board to spinning 00:16:16.139 --> 00:16:19.480 3D globes. Educators Mark Gusdeel and Elliot 00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:21.639 Soloway have actually argued that the traditional 00:16:21.639 --> 00:16:24.980 text -based hello world test message might be 00:16:24.980 --> 00:16:27.740 totally outdated today. Really? Yeah, they suggest 00:16:27.740 --> 00:16:29.899 that manipulating complex graphics and sound 00:16:29.899 --> 00:16:32.440 is now just as easy for modern computers as printing 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:35.159 text was decades ago. Why just print a word when 00:16:35.159 --> 00:16:37.190 you can summon an entire interactive environment 00:16:37.190 --> 00:16:39.809 with three lines of code. That raises an important 00:16:39.809 --> 00:16:41.990 question though. If a modern language can render 00:16:41.990 --> 00:16:44.850 a photorealistic 3D environment instantly, why 00:16:44.850 --> 00:16:47.590 are we still asking it to print a 1950s radio 00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:50.690 DJ catchphrase? Exactly, but it feels like we 00:16:50.690 --> 00:16:52.629 would be losing a crucial piece of our shared 00:16:52.629 --> 00:16:55.389 heritage if we let the text go completely. If 00:16:55.389 --> 00:16:57.429 we synthesize everything we've looked at today, 00:16:57.710 --> 00:17:01.250 Hello World is clearly far more than just a coding 00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:04.829 cliche. It's a historical artifact inextricably 00:17:04.829 --> 00:17:08.230 tied to the physical memory limitations of 1970s 00:17:08.230 --> 00:17:11.289 hardware. Absolutely. It has evolved into a literal 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:14.549 industry benchmark for business usability with 00:17:14.549 --> 00:17:17.470 the time to hello world metric. And it remains 00:17:17.470 --> 00:17:20.950 a concept so fundamental that it seamlessly transforms 00:17:20.950 --> 00:17:24.609 into factorial math, or blinking lights, or 3D 00:17:24.609 --> 00:17:26.910 geometry depending entirely on the environment 00:17:26.910 --> 00:17:29.339 it finds itself in. Oh, and before we wrap up, 00:17:29.460 --> 00:17:31.480 I have to share one last detail that proves just 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:34.700 how deeply this specific idea of the sanity check 00:17:34.700 --> 00:17:37.019 is embedded in computing culture. OK, let's hear 00:17:37.019 --> 00:17:39.339 it. The Debian and Ubuntu Linux operating systems 00:17:39.339 --> 00:17:41.599 literally include a command just called hello. 00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:44.160 You type hello into your terminal, and the system 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:46.539 reaches out to its package manager. The GNU Hello 00:17:46.539 --> 00:17:49.180 package downloads a tiny program and prints, 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:52.180 hello, world. Wait, a program built for no other 00:17:52.180 --> 00:17:54.079 reason than to prove the downloading mechanism 00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:57.329 itself is functioning. Yes. It exists solely 00:17:57.329 --> 00:17:59.970 to prove the package manager is working correctly 00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:02.589 and to serve as a pristine template for developers 00:18:02.589 --> 00:18:04.750 learning how to format their own software packages. 00:18:05.549 --> 00:18:08.549 It is sanity checks all the way down. An operating 00:18:08.549 --> 00:18:11.809 system testing itself using the oldest grading 00:18:11.809 --> 00:18:14.529 in the book. That is fantastic. It really makes 00:18:14.529 --> 00:18:16.609 you think about the invisible layers of abstraction 00:18:16.609 --> 00:18:19.990 we rely on every single day. As technology gets 00:18:19.990 --> 00:18:21.750 more and more complex, we kind of lose sight 00:18:21.750 --> 00:18:23.910 of the pipes and the wiring. And that leaves 00:18:23.910 --> 00:18:26.630 us with a final thought to mull over. If we do 00:18:26.630 --> 00:18:29.970 fully abandon the simple text, hello world, for 00:18:29.970 --> 00:18:32.450 auto -generated code templates or instantly rendered 00:18:32.450 --> 00:18:35.970 3D graphics, do we risk losing touch with the 00:18:35.970 --> 00:18:38.250 absolute bare metal fundamentals of how humans 00:18:38.250 --> 00:18:42.450 first learn to teach machines to speak? I want 00:18:42.450 --> 00:18:44.089 to turn this toward you listening right now and 00:18:44.089 --> 00:18:46.619 apply it to your own life. Oh, I like this. beyond 00:18:46.619 --> 00:18:50.220 just computers, what is your personal hello world? 00:18:51.059 --> 00:18:53.599 When you sit down to learn a completely new skill, 00:18:53.720 --> 00:18:55.380 whether it's picking up a guitar, learning a 00:18:55.380 --> 00:18:56.980 foreign language, or stepping onto a tennis court, 00:18:57.380 --> 00:18:59.660 what is the simplest possible action you take? 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:03.299 What is that vital, tiny first step you use to 00:19:03.299 --> 00:19:06.000 prove to yourself, okay, I am ready to begin. 00:19:06.200 --> 00:19:08.539 Tapping the mic in your own life. I love that. 00:19:08.839 --> 00:19:10.740 Well thank you for joining us on this deep dive 00:19:10.740 --> 00:19:12.940 into the history, the friction, and the philosophy 00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:15.920 behind two simple words. Keep exploring, keep 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.779 questioning, and we will catch you on the next 00:19:17.779 --> 00:19:17.940 one.