Hello, World!

Every programming language started with a human moment.

In 2006, a programmer climbed twenty-one flights of stairs because his elevator's software had crashed again. By the time he reached his apartment, he had decided to build a language that would make those bugs impossible. The White House ended up recommending it by name.

In 1952, Grace Hopper built the first compiler, and nobody believed her. In 1964, two Dartmouth professors typed RUN at 4 AM and launched the personal computer revolution. In 1995, Brendan Eich built JavaScript in ten days and accidentally created the most widely deployed programming language on earth.

Hello, World! tells all of these stories and 85 more. 90 programming languages, 76 years, from Konrad Zuse's Plankalkul in 1948 to Gleam in 2024. Each language gets one page: who made it, why, what the code looks like, and what happened next. 28 spotlight narratives go deeper into the human drama behind the code. Dip in anywhere or read it front to back and watch the entire history of programming unfold.

Reviewed and corrected by language creators. Entries were verified by the creators of BCPL, SQL, CUDA, Haskell, C++, F#, and Visual Basic.

"A remarkably readable romp through the development of programming languages. While languages are the critical tool of the most indispensable profession of our era, this is not a boring history of technical arcana. Rather, Biagio gives us a revealing glimpse into the rooms where it happened, showing how paradigms and products evolved from the needs of practitioners and brilliant inventors. It's packed with fascinating vignettes of creators, their motivations, their achievements, and their failures. Like me, I know you will learn more than you expected, and have fun doing it."
-- Alan Cooper, "The Father of Visual Basic"

"Biagio captures the human stories behind 90 programming languages with genuine care and accuracy. His book is a valuable contribution to the history of computing."
-- Don Chamberlin, co-creator of SQL

"As far as I am concerned it is perfect."
-- Martin Richards, creator of BCPL

What is inside:

• 90 languages across 8 eras, from the Pioneers (1948) to the AI Age (2024)
• 28 spotlight narratives you will not forget: the elevator that inspired Rust, the 4 AM birth of BASIC, Grace Hopper's compiler that should not have worked, JavaScript's ten-day sprint, the COBOL code that outlived everything, and more
• Verified Hello World code for every language, checked against official documentation
• Fun facts that land: the White House memo that named Rust, the LOLCODE web server that actually worked, the language built entirely from eight characters

You will like this book if you have ever:

• Wondered why there are so many programming languages, and whether anyone actually planned it this way
• Used a language for years without knowing the argument, accident, or bet that created it
• Wanted a book about programming that reads like stories, not documentation
• Needed a gift for the developer who already mass-produces side projects in languages they will never use professionally

No coding experience required. No coding experience hurt, either.