What is a better language-introduction preview than "Hello World"? [closed]

Question

Many programming languages introduce themselves with a simple "Hello World" program.

As a programmer, I must admit that this does not give very good insight into the strenghts and capabilities of the language.

What kind of problem would you suggest to use when providing a demo of a programming language?

Answer 1

I think the "Hello World" program has its uses. It says a lot if you can run that program:

• You have your IDE/Tools setup correctly
• You can write a class and or main method in that language
• You can call a function in that language to print
• You can edit a file and format it correctly for that language
• Your compiler is working and you know how to use it.

So, for those reasons I don't find any better alternative to "Hello World."

However, in terms of a good intro to languages in general, I'm a big fan of coding challenges like Python Challenge. You are given a set of challenges/puzzles you have to complete with the language. They start out extremely basic (the first one is easier than writing a hello world).

They quickly progress into more difficult and advanced tasks, and usually are tasks that are intended to show off a particular aspect of the language.

I only wish every language had such a fun programming challenge. I think a LISP, Haskell, C++, C, Java, etc Challenge would be a fun introduction to the languages for people. They could be tailored to the languages.

The C++ challenge could quickly start having challenges involving pointers and other commonly misunderstood aspects to help drive home those difficult bits while the LISP/Haskell challenges could start to ask some questions that are more tailored to functional languages.