iPhone "Hello World" binary released

If "Hello World" appears on your computer screen, it's a fledgling programmer's first steps.

If "Hello World" appears on your microwave screen, it's a fledgling hacker's first steps.

John, I tried to explain my feelings on the "hacker" term in #11, but I'll try to be clearer:
The fact that any old app says "Hello world" is a general programming thing, and usually not very impressive.
The fact that an app says "Hello world" on the iPhone, and is an actual APP, not a web page, is a huge step forward. It doesn't matter if it says "Hello world" or does your taxes or anything in between, the fact that an app is running on the iPhone, period, is what's exciting.

Everyone lay off John, please. Thanks!

As far as a toolchain/SDK for iPhone, I'm in the camp that believes it would have been impossible to release an effective SDK for a device running a variant of OS X 10.5 (Leopard) before 10.5 itself is shipping.

I would of thought that they would have included a little jingle Bobby Darin's you know the one "Hey, world, here I am... Get ready for me life, 'cause I'm a "comer"
I simply gotta march, my heart's a drummer..
Nobody, no, Nobody, is gonna rain on my parade!

Honestly, I suspect that Apple will release a proper SDK down the road. It's damned hard to do a first release of hardware AND software all at once, and do support on it, when third-party stuff gets installed. I bricked my poor Windows Mobile PDA plenty of times through third-party software. So it's unfortunate that there's no official toolchain or install method, but I'm reasonably sure that'll be temporary. (Don't prove me wrong, Apple.)

That said, this toolchain is a very, very good thing. Why? Because the frameworks used for this development are the iPhone's own frameworks; something developed using this toolchain should be trivially easy to port over to an official development kit when/if we get one. So this allows people not only to write third-party apps now (albeit ones that are a little tricky to install), but to get a head start on developing things they could turn into official-toolkit apps down the road.

That's my take on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world

My original comment was an attempt to point out that the relationship between "Hello World" and "true hacker fashion" is unclear, and that one doesn't necessarily follow the other.

Or maybe it does and I just don't get it, but Woz does? Onward.

The original post is a good post and extremely timely. The content of the post, the posters editing abilities or the nuances of "hacker" were not the issue, not even remotely.

When you see a "Hello World" program do you think to yourself "Ah, Hello World, that's a sure sign of a hacker"? Maybe "Hello World" on the iPhone means something else? Or maybe "Hello World" is so timeless and generalized that it's not a sign of anything at all? I personally use "Howdy, Clem", but that's neither here nor there.

I'm probably the only one wondering, it's not a big deal, but the actual conundrum is "how does Hello World relate specifically to hackers, and not programming in general".

Regards to all. Keep up the good work, TUAW.

P.S. - Send Scotch.

This is great news. If anyone followed the PSP saga, the hello world program was the first program that came before a myriad of other great programs (emulators, video players, etc etc) that can run natively in the PSP. Mmmm, time to buy an IPhone for some Dev-ing. Hope the guys developed an easy Toolchain

"I'm with Steve Jobs on this one. Isn't it A LOT easier to just create a web page that says "Hello World"? Seems like a lot of work going this "hacker" route."

Steve Jobs is the REASON it's so hard to take this route. If Apple would have released a developer SDK instead of forcing everyone to make useless nonfunctional "web apps," this problem wouldn't even exist. And on top of that, they expect us to believe that web apps are a "feature."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker

Summarizing: three distinct, somewhat overlapping uses of the term...

1. a person who follows a spirit of playful cleverness and loves programming ... found in an originally academic movement unrelated to computer security

2. in field of computer security, someone who focuses on security mechanisms ... as popularized by the mass media, that refers to someone who illegally breaks into computer and network systems ... but parts of the subculture see their aim in correcting security problems and use the word in a positive sense.

3. computer hobbyists who push the limits of their software or hardware.

(John, you're a puppet of the mass media.)

For the record, Woz is the ulitimate hacker's hacker, and is someone who would actually know the significance of being able to run Hello World on the particular ARM architecture of the iPhone.

IMO the iPhone is completely useless unless it can run apps off the phone itself. There are many people who spend lots of time underground or in locations with no reception, and there's no reason a web page should be necessary to run a non-internet-related app.

I applaud these "hackers," and I think that's a very appropriate name regardless of what the hack does -- the very fact that they are enabling functionality the phone didn't have out of the box is a hack.