So here I am, out on the road again…
I’ve written a gaming blog on an off for years (long enough that it predates blogs being called blogs), but that’s on LiveJournal and now I’m trying this wordpress thing for more general topics. I’m inspired by a number of friends who have made the leap before me (well, maybe not a leap, exactly…but they have started blogs here on wordpress), as well as by my interest in writing more random topics than just gaming. So, you are forewarned! Abandon all order, ye who read here!
This is my attempt at a completely uninspired introduction, as I was surprised and a bit dismayed to see that there was a post automatically generated to this journal for me, entitled “Hello world!”
That said, I have to point out that I’ve always found a fair amount of irritation with the lack of imagination exhibited by programmers of a certain age, in writing the introductory example program for their computer programming language, which program invariably make the monitor display the words “Hello world!” I figure they are universally deluded that “Hello world!” isn’t somehow the very thing that will discourage any interest or enthusiasm in continuing further exploration of programming in the particular language. I mean, come ON! I understand that the most basic program is one that provides an output without any user interaction, but why not make it actually interesting text? Why not something with just a bit of whimsy, like “Human, prepare to kowtow to your electronic overlord!” or “All that work and all I got was this crappy text??” or “Hey, gorgeous – going my way?”
So, with that comes a challenge: what would you suggest a novice programmer in language XYZ (where ‘XYZ’ is a variable meant to represent any computer language, and not an actual programming language called XYZ) use as their initial text output from their very first program in that language?
ssxix 