It’s Hello, World. Not Hello World. OK?

There are hills to die on, and then there are molehills pretending to be Everest.

People accuse The Secret Developer of being nothing more than a rant machine, and get quite upset about that. So to help them out, I’ve decided the missing comma in “Hello, World” requires an article explaining why it’s wrong.

Indeed it is wrong, so wrong.

I’m not Petty

You’re probably thinking that this is petty. You’re thinking, surely, this doesn’t matter. But that’s where you’re wrong, friend. Dead wrong.

When someone drops the comma in Hello, World, what they’re really doing is giving a middle finger to programming history. It’s a micro aggression against every CS101 class, every dusty textbook, and every poor soul who had to squint at a CRT monitor and pray their Pascal program would compile.

“Hello, World” with no comma? That’s not homage. That’s heresy.

You’re History (No Good for Me)

Let me take you back. The original “Hello, World.” (yes, WITH a comma and a period) came from Brian Kernighan in The C Programming Language.

It wasn’t some random syntax soup, it was intentional, a tradition, the beginning of a history. Like all traditions, it tells you who actually read the damn manual and who’s been cutting corners since their JavaScript bootcamp started serving artisanal lattes

Now you might say, “It’s just a comma, what’s the big deal?”.

Yeah right. If you can’t be trusted with punctuation, how can you be trusted with my production database? If you can’t honor the legacy of the gods of C, I sure as hell don’t want to be in your git blame.

Pedantry isn’t Just about Spelling

And let’s be clear. This isn’t about being pedantic. This is about signaling whether you care. Whether you’ve paid attention. Whether you understand that the smallest things in programming do matter. The comma is a shibboleth. It’s a way to separate the script kiddies from the adults who actually read man pages.

So please. Respect the comma.

Or don’t. But don’t expect your PRs to pass unscathed.

About The Author

Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.

The Secret Developer is all about respect. Lolz.