Hello World has been established by many as the first thing you should do to learn a new programming/scripting/markup/whatever language. Most 'Hello World's are simple (after all, that's the point). But maybe they're too simple. See, 'Hello World' doesn't go through the areas that you would most likely use during the creation of your application (i.e. user input, conditionals, graphics, etc.).

What I like to do is recreate the Pythagorean Theorem after mastering 'Hello World', for several reasons:

- It deals with conditionals (determining whether to find the hypotenuse or one of the sides)
- It deals with math (this shouldn't have to be explained )
- It deals with graphics (I know, drawing a triangle isn't much, but it's still graphics)
- It deals with user input & validation (determining whether the input is a number, and actually getting that input in the first place)

What do you do after mastering the 'Hello World' of your respective language? Do you go straight to creating your idea or do you do something else first (like me?) If so, what do you like to do?

Usually, I aim for making a number guessing game after I mastered the Hello World.

Sometimes before that, I do simple input stuff (like: "What's your name?" type thing)

Then after that, I just do whatever with it.

The Pythagorean theorem sounds like a good idea. I might do that too.

It depends. If the language is more oriented towards graphics (or you're trying out a graphics library), you can always try to move a character onscreen.

- It deals with input
- It deals with drawing sprites (bonus: change the sprite with directions)
- It deals with conditionals (if you're gonna restrain the character to stay within limits)

You can build from there and create a simple RPG.

I can't say that I have any particular one thing that I do after writing the Hello World. My story's been different with every language I've learned:
- In C#, Java, and Flex Actionscript, I followed tutorials, so I did what immediately followed: a simple mad lib program, a program that printed a song (using methods to eliminate redundancy), and a graphical finance calculator.
- In Applesoft BASIC for the Apple //e, I wrote a number guessing game.
- For TI-BASIC, I dove right into "Bop-it", a simple game idea.
- Axe and GameMaker were "move the character around the screen" programs.

Of all of these, I'd say that the number guessing game is the best, because it deals with math and conditionals, yet has a well defined spec that is easily replicated.

I usually make a "Kerm vs. Omnimaga" app. It randomly displays how much they suck compared to each other.

Omnimaga usually loses.

Response to topic: "Hello milky way"

Response to post: i usually work with law of sines and cosines. You learn math.sin( or whatever the sin/cos command is. As well as conditionals, loops, and minor graphics.

I usually go for a game of some sort.

TI-BASIC was the first language I learned, and the first thing I did after learning it was to make an awful 20,000-byte (exactly 20,000 bytes—long story) text adventure. It helped a lot to teach me conditionals, loops, and unfortunately gotos as well.

One summer I found a book lying around the house on Java, so I read that. My first program after Hello World (which was provided by the book anyway) was a tic-tac-toe game with JWT. Having no computer to work on, I wrote it all on notebook paper. (When I typed it up two years later, it didn't work.) The simple, interactive exercise helped me understand what objects and events were.

After learning Z80, though, I just went simple and made a stupid "you're not quitting this program until you find the right key" game. I guess assembly was just such a big step then that I had to start really, really small.

So I guess it really depends a lot on the language, as Juju said. But I always start with a game because even the simplest games involve conditionals, interactivity, and other important topics.

I skipped Hello World, messed around with Menu/Output/Disp for a while then went straight for a graphical RPG.

Note: It only had one dungeon, one enemy (stats were dependent on yours), 3 bosses and was totally imba. It had graphics, though.

I don't thing I did an actual "Hello, World!" either, but I'm sure I played around with Disp at some point

Text Based RPG, of course . In Apple BASIC, I mad a mad-lib, and on GML, I did Pong.

Well "Hello World" is just barely delving into text display which most often than not is very simple. So most programming tutorials, whether for conformity or ease, stick with this basic program. I remember my first Ti-Basic program, it wasn't the "Hello World" program at all. It was a guessing game of sorts. In the Ti-84 instruction manual there was a simple "guess the coefficients" program, not even a game, which intrigued me. This and the Serpinski triangle example became my guide of sorts on how to program. I remember typing in the Serpinski triangle with only using letters (for example the command "Disp" Was typed 'D' 'I' 'S' 'P'), and it returned an error. I asked my math teacher about it. She helped me figure out the mess that was my "code". I dropped the serpinski triangle for then because it wasn't a game, thus not interesting. I wrote the coefficient game and it was dumb. So taking it upon myself I decided to fix it up. Pretty much just changing one part at a time I figured out what each part meant. Finally it formed a guessing game, using prompt instead of input.
After that I looked up every tutorial I could find on my new favorite subject, programming.
I would say after "Hello world", explore the uses of getkey. Learning about getkey was a goldmine (oh that, xlib, and doors). One word of advice, always finish a project before starting a bunch more, that really kills me.

With computer languages I started now after hello world programs doing IRC bots, but that is probably just my insanity towards loving IRC bots which I developed....

Heh, I know what you feel like. I remember trying to survive on IRC and being amazed at all the bots people managed to do. A few months later, I learned a bit more about IRC and the internet itself, and out came Pythabot. It really was an amazing learning experience and I've been hooked since.

Particularly speaking, I have a tendency to jump into the frey. My first language was MIRC scripting, which had no hello world script XD Needless to say, I learned a lot about text games first. After one has completed a Hello World application tutorial, you now have the 'environment' to add some things. If you are dealing with a graphics lib like opengl, or directX, I definitely suggest adding sprites, and then getting them to move with keyboard or mouse input. If you are dealing with an application environment (VB, C#, etc), I suggest working on a Black Jack game. This will give you the fundamentals of 'logic testing'. If you are dealing with a basic language (TI Basic), might I suggest a Math Assist program? Find a class subject, and try to make a program that allows you to enter the minimum amount of data to get your answers.

Yeah, at first my IRC bots also always got ping timeouts, but then time after time I did optimizations and stuff, like when it recieves Error: link closing it'll just reconnect, or also if it doesn't recieve a ping after some time (some other kinda crash)
But i have never made such a general IRC bot like that, I always just adjust them to my needs, I guess I'm to lazy to add if-conditions and parameters and such stuff....
My most recent and currently most used IRC bot is some plugin-manager so that I can load plugins in lua, I power several bots that are frequently used in #omnimaga via that one.