Hello World!

My name is Hicham ElMir.

I’ve always found something fascinating about the phrase “Hello World.”

We say “hello” every day to begin a conversation, but somehow Hello World feels different. It feels bigger.

To me, it’s less of a greeting and more of an invitation—a first interaction with something you don’t completely understand yet, but somehow know could become important.

Think of a group of middle-school students watching their first science experiment. There’s an unexpected reaction, something bubbles or explodes (with the appropriate safety measures, of course 😂), and suddenly everyone is paying attention.

That little spark of curiosity becomes the beginning of a journey.

That’s their Hello World.

And perhaps that’s why programmers adopted the phrase as one of their first interactions with a programming language. A few simple words appear on a console, but behind them is an entire world waiting to be explored.

My own Hello World with computers happened a little differently, though.

It didn’t involve code at all.

It involved a computer, a printer, a lot of ink, and my conspiring three-year-old self.

My First Computer Adventure

Ignoring the fact that I apparently looked like a little floof, I had always been fascinated by computers.

And I don't mean the way toddlers today might immediately reach for a touchscreen or an iPad.

Computers felt different back then.

The family computer was almost treated like a treasure. I remember the tower beeping when it started, the fans spinning, the clicks of the keyboard, and that wonderfully old-school Windows ME boot screen.

Everything about it felt important.

My first memorable interaction with one involved quite a bit of noise—and quite a bit of printer ink.

Sorry, Dad. 😬

One day, I watched my father print some important documents for work using the revolutionary piece of technology known as Microsoft Word.

Apparently, I was paying very close attention.

Later, having decided that my normal three-year-old toys were no longer intellectually stimulating enough, I somehow climbed onto the computer chair, opened a new Word document, typed my name, and pressed Ctrl + P.

I must have learned the shortcut simply by watching my father.

The printer came alive.

And there it was:

My name. On paper.

Naturally, one copy wasn't enough.

By copy number five, I proudly ran to my dad carrying my beautiful new artwork.

He was skeptical at first—probably wondering what exactly his toddler had done to the computer—but once he realized what had happened, he was fascinated.

And I was fascinated too.

I had told a machine to do something.

And it listened.

I obviously didn't understand it at the time, but looking back, that may have been one of my earliest Hello World moments.

Why I'm Writing This

You might be wondering why I chose to write all of this when I could be working on college assignments or my VR course project.

The reason is simple:

I love computers.

More specifically, I love the feeling of taking a few lines of code and turning them into something real—something that behaves, responds, solves a problem, or becomes useful to another person.

There is something magical about that transformation.

It’s what motivates me to Code with Purpose, a motto I've chosen for myself.

It's also the competitiveness of solving a difficult problem—the part of programming that brings out both the riddler and the player in us.

And if this is going to be my first blog post, that feels like the first thing I want the world to know about me.

In other words:

This is my Hello World.

What Comes Next

I want this blog to become a journal of my adventures, lessons, experiments, and opinions in technology.

My hope is that, years from now, I’ll be able to come back here and see not only what I built, but how I thought, what I struggled with, what I learned, and how much I changed along the way.

And while technology and coding are a big part of who I am, they're certainly not everything.

I also love photography. I occasionally produce music—and I especially enjoy messing around with synthesizers. 😎

And yes, every once in a while, I apparently know how to have fun too.

Hence, Exhibit A below. cough

As I write this, I’m approaching my college graduation in December 2021 and stepping into whatever comes next.

I have no idea exactly where this journey will lead.

But that might be the exciting part.

So here's to learning, building, experimenting, failing, improving, and documenting some of it along the way.

From graduation to, as Buzz Lightyear would say:

“To infinity and beyond!”

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