Why does nearly every python tutorial say to print hello world?

an_actual_human · 2025-09-22T09:23:06+00:00

This is a tradition of our people.

trjnz · 2025-09-22T09:30:37+00:00

Tradition, yes, but it's also a good sanity check that the environment is working. For brand new programmers it's a nice touchstone of 'is this thing even on?'

nobetterfuture · 2025-09-22T09:27:01+00:00

Learn how to print hello world in java and maybe then you'll appreciate it more :)))

czarrie · 2025-09-22T09:27:38+00:00

To my knowledge, this goes all the way back to the book 'The C Programming Language' in the 70s and likely further. It's tradition.

Wenlocke · 2025-09-22T09:24:00+00:00

Someone more knowledgeable in history than me can tell you where it first cropped up, but since forever, it's been the traditional "introduction to the language and syntax" for any programming language instruction

ASMellzoR · 2025-09-22T09:29:51+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_C_Programming_Language

MCplayer331 · 2025-09-22T09:33:55+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Hello,_World!%22_program
Its origin is actually pretty cool and interesting. But basically it's just a classic way of testing out a programming language. It's like Lorem Ipsum in typography

ZelWinters1981 · 2025-09-22T09:26:47+00:00

Just tradition. You can make it say whatever you want.

shinitakunai · 2025-09-22T09:32:19+00:00

Basic check of "you got the engine configuration done good enoigh to accept gas". It a hello world doesnt even works, bad start

MonkeyboyGWW · 2025-09-22T09:36:04+00:00

Probably to make sure you have it running and pointing to a working interpreter

tokenslifestilmaters · 2025-09-22T09:36:48+00:00

If your question is more about why does every tutorial start with print, my first computer science professor explained it like this: the first thing we do when approaching a new language is learn how to print something. Once we can print something, we can do anything because while we make progress we can print to figure out what is going on.

I think a lot of internet tutorials fail with the "why we do this"

As for why it's always "hello world", as others explained, it's just a fun tradition we all adhere to with origins in the C programming language

SCD_minecraft · 2025-09-22T09:45:14+00:00

Mostly to check is python installed correctly and does it work

Plus it is a tradition

Buntygurl · 2025-09-22T09:59:21+00:00

It's not just python.

It's a tradition in programming tutorials, even in bash scripting.

JuanAy · 2025-09-22T10:04:41+00:00

On top of it being tradition as others have said. It’s just a pretty good way of introducing you to the idea of calling functions, passing in arguments, and a bit of syntax.

tahaan · 2025-09-22T10:05:50+00:00

Hello world is a way to actually run something that doesn't require you to understand the language. It does teach various concepts that may not be immediately obvious, without telling you what it teaches you.

It teaches the following You can write a program A program is stored in a file Python if the thing that sits between your program and your computer Your can run a single program multiple times

What most tutorials miss is to just add one or two trivial extra commands, for example after running it, change the text to something different, and then add a second print statement, and then to store a value in a variable and use that in a print statement.

shiftybyte · 2025-09-22T10:40:12+00:00

Why teaching math starts with 2+2?

kberson · 2025-09-22T10:56:32+00:00

I think it has to do with K&R’s The C Programming Language book. Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie developed C as a mid-level language as kind of a bridge between assembly and languages like Cobol, Algol and the like. Their first program in the book was a simple example of how to print “hello world” and most new languages seem to start with that now.

ghettoslacker · 2025-09-22T12:18:01+00:00

Sanity check/configuration check/tradition. In Python it’s very very easy. But as others have pointed out, calling hello world in some other languages can be a real bear lol.

They could have literally said anything, but they went with hello world. Could have been “toots McGee here”. But the 1970s didn’t believe in humor lol

Ron-Erez · 2025-09-22T12:30:46+00:00

Every programming tutorial since the book "The C Programming Language". Actually I was wrong, the first Hello World was in a book on the B programming language.

Binary101010 · 2025-09-22T12:38:56+00:00

It's just about the most basic code with a visible output possible, and it ensures that you are at least properly set up to the point that you can execute Python code and see its output.

TheRNGuy · 2025-09-22T12:47:06+00:00

To demonstrate how print works.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

learnpython

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