I always found the comma after the “Hello” a bit odd, but I’m no one to judge the tradition.

I guess a good way to start is to tell you about my first “Hello, World!” program. It was the second semester of my undergrad, and I was giving programming a chance although I was already nerdy enough to also get into coding. However it was love at first sight: There was something about the mysterious keywords of that Java program that captivated me.

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public class HelloWorld {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello, World!");
    }
}

I was such a newbie to coding that I even made flashcards to memorize the syntax. I thought that computer science was like biology: I just had to memorize what each keyword meant and I would be fine. I quickly threw away those flashcards though, because real programmers are like chefs: They don’t memorize recipes, they just know how to use a knife/blender/Air Fryer. Or something like that, although most of the programmers I know don’t cook and live on ramen and protein shakes.

Going back to the tale, I was at a point of my studies where I felt stupid. I thought I was going to become a physicist, but the thing is that in order to take the cool astrophysics and quantum courses you need to take 13 courses in mechanical physics and I just couldn’t wrap around my head the right-hand rule. I was taking CS as an elective, but after realizing how much fun I had with my assignments I decided to switch majors. I ended up graduating in mathematics and computer science as I still found the math behind physics fascinating, but the joy I felt in coding was much better than the intellectual satisfaction of solving integrals. And the best part was that I was (and still am) pretty good at coding.

And since then I have never stopped being fascinated by programming. I love how code feels alive. Even after it’s written and deployed to the world it can still change, grow, and become something larger than its original author ever imagined (and the author itself). It sounds cliché I know, but it feels cool to think that some of the random computer instructions that I’ve written are used by thousands of devs every day.

I don’t know what else to say for now and tbh I just wanted to see how Hugo shows code blocks (and if you don’t like Dracula then you’re not going to have a good time in this site). I’m pleased for now, so cambio y fuera amigos.