Back to Basics - Hello World

A distinguished colleague of mine challenged me to write an article about staying up to date. But technical and non-technical pros seem to be missing the basic building blocks. No not you sir, but many are. I struggled with this as a topic and have instead chosen to remind people to master the little things before getting too worried about the next whiz bang technology. Without the basics, you can’t hope to keep up with the new technologies. I will write a blog about staying up to date... but not today.

Today, we’re going to look at Hello World. If you don’t know what a Hello World program is, it is the basic code for making a message appear on the screen. If you take an entry level programming class at a college or tech school on day one, you will learn a Hello World program.

If you haven’t written a hello world program, then I challenge you to do it along with me. I will show you 2 ways to write a hello world program that are free, easy and should only take you an hour at most to explore.

Here are 2 languages that we will explore writing Hello World for free on a Windows PC.

HTML

This can be run from any PC with a modern browser but what I’ve outlined below was done on a Windows PC.

Powershell (Windows Only) -

This is a windows scripting language. It’s used mostly by Infrastructure types like me to do basic file copies, interface with new technologies like Azure and other cloud interfaces. Chances are if you can do it in the GUI of Windows, you can do it with a Powershell script and save yourself time with repetitive tasks.

Sure there are plenty of hot tech languages for you to learn out there but this is a back to basics scenario and needs to be friendly for non developer and non programmers. In fact some of those developers and programmers will point out that these are not “real programming” languages. But since I’ve seen some insanely complicated tasks completed with these basic tools, I think they will suffice nicely for the first time Hello World learner.

HTML

What you need - a PC with a browser.

Resources

• W3Schools tutorials - https://www.w3schools.com/html

• This page is the best! I am not a coder for a living but I run into situations where knowing java, HTML and or SQL is very valuable. This is the first page to look at to learn the basic commands. In the case of HTML, you can play with the code from within the browser and see the results.

• Google - http://google.com

HTML is a language that we interact with on a daily basis when using the Web. It’s great for a lot of things because it works across platforms - MAC, PC, Linux and Mobile Devices.

Starting from the W3schools page, https://www.w3schools.com/html/, you’re provided with an HTML example that will open a page, where the title is “Page Title” and the page displays -

What makes W3Schools such a powerful learning tool? You can not only see their code but also try it out. Click the Try it link on the page you opened above and you’ll see the text above in the test environment provided. You can edit it and see what it does.

Let’s try making this a Hello World page. To do that we need to change the text - "This is a paragraph" to "Hello World!" Try it and click run on the w3schools page.

Now experiment a little and change the text “This is a Heading” to “I changed it” and click run. What happens?

You may want to change the Page Title now, but there is a limitation on the w3schools page. This change won’t show up in their window because the HTML is expecting a new webpage to open instead of the framed page they display. But if you change the Page Title to I DID IT, copy the code into a notepad on your local drive as HelloWorld.html, you can then open it with your browser and you should see something like this. Notice it says I Did It on the top left on the browser tab.

Quick thoughts on the HTML challenge:

Don’t put HTML on your resume yet. It gets way more complicated than what we’ve done here to get a modern job using HTML. But if this interests you, I would encourage you to explore W3SChools more and try changing colors, change the font size and type.

Try to understand the Syntax (commands and how they are written) but don’t get too hung up on memorizing it unless you are a web developer and want to master it.

If you're trying to figure something out, CHEAT! Life is not a computer science test. Google is a click away and you don’t have to know the code at the bit level to do cool things.

If your goal is just to create a web page, there are tons of WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) editors out there. One of my favorites is wix.com. They have a free version and pay version. Take a few minutes to sign up and you’ll be able to create super cool website in a very short period of time.

PowerShell

What you need - Windows PC with a powershell installed. Be aware that there can be security challenges when using your work PC and Powershell. Most companies block Powershell unless it’s from a trusted source.

Resources

• Scripting Guys Blog - https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/

• Windows Powershel 5.0 is part of the Windows management framework that is available for download from Microsoft here. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50395

Once you have Powershell installed via the link above, reboot your PC and open Windows Powershell ISE.

Paste the code below into the top portion of the ISE window:

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")

[System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox]::Show("Hello World!")

• On Line 1, we load a library that interprets the line 2 Messageboxes.

• On Line 2 you will see the classic Hello World Statement.

You can then click the green “play button” at the top of the Window Powershell ISE editor and you will see the Hello World popup below.

To change the message, change the text between the Quotes (“Hello World!”) and re save the file. This is super easy once you get over some initial fear. If you have questions, let me know and I will try to help you out.

Quick Thoughts on Powershell:

This does not make you a powershell expert, but if you can write a logon script and a couple of commands that speed up your life in IT, you probably have more knowledge on scripting with Powershell than most of your colleagues. Try it out. You may find some shortcuts that streamline your day. Just be careful you don't edit Active Directory using the commands before knowing what you're doing. With great power comes great responsibility.

Google Powershell and what you want to do. More likely than not you will find a resource to help. It’s rare that we come up with new IT problems unless we’re on the cutting edge. If you’re looking for a great resource, look at the Microsoft Scripting Guys blog (linked above). These guys are awesome and have helped me learn Powershell and vbscript.

Challenge

Write your own Hello World program. Even if you’re not technical, these should be easy enough to complete in less than an hour. Try making the background your favorite color and changing the font and color of the text.

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