Exact meaning of the "world" in "hello world"

Applications Programming
1

Hello!

I have a question to native English-speaking people. In the popular program's "hello world" greeting, what meaning the "world" has: "all", "everybody", "people", "friends" or "whole world", "planet", "Earth", "Universe"?

In other words, to whom this greeting is addressed: to the people capable to see program's output, or to the whole world or whole Universe?

Here in Russia, "hello world" is usually translated as ", " that means the "hello whole world", "hello Universe" or "hello planet". I'm afraid that the correct meaning should be like "hello all", "hello everybody", "hello people" or similar.

I tried to search in dictonaries but "hello world" is so common phrase so it is not explained. I'm afraid its meaning is trivial for every native English-speaking person. :slight_smile:

Could somebody please explain?

Regards,
Eugene

2

Hello world program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3

Please excuse me but your answer is completely unrelated to my question. I know what "hello world" programs do. I need to know what the "world" exactly means.

4

"Hello World" is just a string , that programmers use to test if their first piece of code is working .
The history of the "Hello World!" program | Digg Topnews

5

I understand that this is just a short string. I'm a software developer myself. :slight_smile:

My question is about how to correctly translate the "hello world" to Russian. Not only a computer message but the typical meaning of the phrase.

If somebody says "hello world", whom this greeting is most probably directed to? To only people (humans) or to the whole Earth or even Universe?

I'm not a native English-speaking man so it's not obvious for me.

6

When you say "Hello World" you actually mean "Hello Everybody!!" :slight_smile:

"World" does not mean the Earth or Universe in this context. It simply means "Human Beings" here.

Hope this clears your confusion.

7

Definitely, it clears. :slight_smile: Thank you very much for explanation.

9

world means programming space.
For C++ refer C++ Basics

10

No. that context is not true in the case of "Hello World" context. ....

"Hello World" means "Hello, I'm Here" no different than when a baby is born in to the world, and if it could talk, it would say "Hello World!" meaning "I'm Here Everybody!" "I Am Alive" & and "I Am Working".

This is because "Hello World" is consider a "baby step" in programming. It is considered the "first baby step", where someone actually writes a software program and prints out a string. It could be "Hi Me" or "Yea Me!" or anything; but because it was first "Hello World"... that is the custom/tradition.

So, it really means "Yea Me. I Took a Baby Step in the Programming Language. Hello World."

This is how I have always viewed Hello World.

11

In my own opinion, the ubiquitous 'Hello, world!' program; which I tend to write every single time I wish to test out any 'new' programming language that I'm interested in learning; as, basically, it proves 4 absolutely essential things...

1> I've downloaded/installed/set up the programming language/environment, correctly
2> I know how to interact with the editor in order to be able to 'write' programs
3> I know how to 'RUN' the program
4> I know how to 'view' the programs output effect

...all of which the 'beginner' programmer really needs to know; before they are ever going to learn to move on to do more advanced coding.

Whether I write it as...

BASIC/QBASIC

PRINT "Hello, world!"

Python

print "Hello, world!"

Javascript

document.write("Hello, world!");

Java

System.out.println("Hello, world!");

Pascal

Writeln('Hello, world!');

DOS Batch file

 ECHO "Hello, world!"

HTML

<body>Hello, world!</body>

-etc.

...and, in this particular context, it doesn't really have any 'specific' meaning at all; most certainly, the program isn't meant to be talking to anybody else; but, myself.
>>>
In the popular program's "hello world" greeting, what meaning the "world" has: "all", "everybody", "people", "friends" or "whole world", "planet", "Earth", "Universe"?
<<<
...thus, it could actually mean 'all' of those things which you've already gone and mentioned above; or, it could even mean, simply, 'Hello, to oneself!'
I think, it's true meaning is, toss out a few utterly 'meaningless' characters/or, phrase onto the output screen to test if the program is working/or, not...?!
You could just as easily have written your test program as being...

BASIC/QBASIC

PRINT 0

...or,...
BASIC/QBASIC

PRINT 1+1

...there's no, quite truly, sensible meaning to it in terms of speech; no more than the 2 lines of code above do have any real meaning in terms of presenting a serious mathematical problem to be solved; the program's intention is merely to produce some quick throw away 'test' output; that's it!

---------- Post updated at 01:46 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:35 PM ----------

Purely, as a matter of general conventional practice, alone; programmer's tend to use, "Hello, world!" as being the very 1st program that they choose to type in. I guess, it's the same thing as when people use the nonsense term: foo/bar; to represent variable names.

12

meh, its overrated, I always used 'print myname' instead :slight_smile:

13

I love that this is a thoroughly discussed subject on this forum.

14

me too.
as a code optimization technique, I propose in future we use simple 'Hi!' instead.

15

This is an interesting question. I am also eager to know why the word "World" is chosen here and not "User" or "Programmer" or "Everybody" :smiley:

16

As far as I know, Brian Kernighan who has been credited with the first "Hello World" program is still alive:

You could try contacting him:
Here is his home page at Princeton.
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/
I won't publish his email address here, but you can find it by reading recent articles he has written.

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