"Hello, World!" program A "Hello, World!" program is usually a simple computer program that emits (or displays) to the screen (often the console ) a message similar to "Hello, World!". A small piece of code in most general-purpose programming languages , this program is used to illustrate a language's basic syntax . Such a program is often the first written by a student of a new programming language, [ 1 ] but it can also be used as a sanity check to ensure that the computer software intended to compile or run source code is correctly installed, and that its operator understands how to use it.