Evolution of "Hello World!"

Question

This contest is officially over, the winner is jimmy23013. Congratulations!

The challenge is to make a program that prints Hello World! to stdout. The catch is that your program must have a Levenshtein distance of 7 or less from the program in the answer submitted before yours.

How This Will Work

Below I have already submitted the first answer using Python: print("Hello World!").

The next person to answer must modify the string print("Hello World!") with up to 7 single character insertions, deletions, or substitutions so that when it is run in any language that hasn't been used so far (only Python in this case) the output is still Hello World!.

For example the second answerer might use 1 substitution (r -> u), 2 deletions (in), and 1 insertion (s) to make the string puts("Hello World!") which prints Hello World! when run in Ruby.

The third person to answer must do the same thing in a new language, but using the program of the second person's answer (e.g. puts("Hello World!")) as their starting point. The fourth answer will be in relation to the third answer and so on.

This will continue on until everyone get stuck because there is no new language the last answer's program can be made to run in by only changing 7 characters. The communal goal is to see how long we can keep this up, so try not to make any obscure or unwarranted character edits (this is not a requirement however).

Formatting

Please format your post like this:

# Answer N - [language]

    [code]

[notes, explanation, observations, whatever]

Where N is the answer number (increases incrementally, N = 1, 2, 3,...).

You do not have to tell which exact characters were changed. Just make sure the Levenshtein distance is from 0 to 7.

Rules

The key thing to understand about this challenge is that only one person can answer at a time and each answer depends on the one before it.

There should never be two answers with the same N. If two people happen to simultaneously answer for some N, the one who answered later (even if it's a few seconds difference) should graciously delete their answer.

Furthermore...

• A user may only submit one answer per 8 hour period. i.e. Each of your answers must be at least 8 hours apart. (This is to prevent users from constantly watching the question and answering as much as possible.)
• A user may not submit two answers in a row. (e.g. since I submitted answer 1 I can't do answer 2, but I could do 3.)
• Each answer must be in a different programming language.
  • Different versions of the same language count as the same language.
  • Languages count as distinct if they are traditionally called by two different names. (There may be some ambiguities here but don't let that ruin the contest.)
• You may only use tabs, newlines, and printable ASCII. (Newlines count as one character.)
• The output should only be Hello World! and no other characters (a leading/trailing newline is not an issue).
• If your language doesn't has stdout use whatever is commonly used for quickly outputting text (e.g. console.log or alert in JavaScript).

Please make sure your answer is valid. We don't want to realize there's a break in the chain five answers up. Invalid answers should be fixed quickly or deleted before there are additional answers.

Don't edit answers unless absolutely necessary.

Scoring

Once things settle down, the user who submits the most (valid) answers wins. Ties go to the user with the most cumulative up-votes.

Leaderboard: (out of date)

(user must have at least 2 valid answers)

11 Answers

• Optimizer - CJam, Groovy, HTML, Forth, Rebol, Markdown, CASIO BASIC, SpeakEasy, REXX, RegXy, Pawn
• jimmy23013 - GNU dc, Zsh, Burlesque, bc, Hack, GDB, QBasic, MediaWiki Markup, itflabtijtslwi, Squirrel, AGOL 68

7 Answers

• Nit - APL, Clipper, Falcon, MUMPS, FreeBASIC, csh, Dart
• Timmy - Lua, Lisp, Oz, Algoid, KTurtle, Alice, OCaml

6 Answers

• Stacey - VHDL, GNU Octave, M4, Logo, Microsoft Batch, Matlab
• Dennis - Dash, tcsh, TeX, ///, HQ9+-, Alore

5 Answers

• plannapus - Stata, Scheme, SQLite, Scala, Suneido
• Pietu1998 - PHP, sh, ALAGUF, Cardinal, Grin

4 Answers

• ypnypn - NetLogo, Mouse, Salmon, Maple
• resueman - Clojure, Emacs Lisp, Vimscript, VBScript
• Timtech - AutoLisp, Geom++, BogusForth, owl

3 Answers

• BrunoJ - CoffeeScript, F#, Betterave

2 Answers

• Mig - Extended BF Type III, TCL
• Calvin's Hobbies - Python, E
• Sp3000 - Racket, Pyth
• grc - Haskell, Turing
• es1024 - Nimrod, ksh
• FireFly - FALSE, mIRC script
• g-rocket - AppleScript, LiveCode
• Oriol - AMPL, PARI/GP
• nneonneo - Boo, Caché ObjectScript

Languages used so far:

1. Python
2. CJam
3. PHP
4. Pyth
5. Perl
6. Befunge 98
7. Bash
8. Nimrod
9. Ruby
10. GNU dc
11. Golfscript
12. Mathematica
13. R
14. Lua
15. Sage
16. Julia
17. Scilab
18. JavaScript
19. VHDL
20. HyperTalk
21. Haskell
22. LOLCODE
23. APL
24. M30W
25. Stata
26. TI-BASIC (NSpire)
27. ActionScript 2
28. J
29. PowerShell
30. K
31. Visual FoxPro
32. VBA
33. Extended BF Type III
34. Zsh
35. Dash
36. Clojure
37. NetLogo
38. Groovy
39. CoffeeScript
40. Clipper
41. B.A.S.I.C.
42. FALSE
43. fish (shell)
44. GNU Octave
45. TCL
46. E
47. newLisp
48. Lisp
49. SMT-LIBv2
50. Racket
51. Batsh
52. tcsh
53. AppleScript
54. Mouse
55. Pixie
56. F#
57. Falcon
58. Burlesque
59. HTML
60. SGML
61. M4
62. MUMPS
63. TeX
64. Forth
65. Salmon
66. Turing
67. bc
68. Betterave
69. Scheme
70. Emacs Lisp
71. Logo
72. AutoLISP
73. ///
74. Rebol
75. Maple
76. FreeBASIC
77. Vimscript
78. ksh
79. Hack
80. mIRC
81. Batch
82. Make
83. Markdown
84. sh
85. GDB
86. csh
87. HQ9+-
88. Postscript
89. Matlab
90. Oz
91. CASIO BASIC
92. VBScript
93. QBasic
94. Processing
95. C
96. Rust 0.13
97. Dart
98. Kaffeine
99. Algoid
100. AMPL
101. Alore
102. Forobj
103. T-SQL
104. LiveCode
105. Euphoria
106. SpeakEasy
107. MediaWiki
108. SmallBASIC
109. REXX
110. SQLite
111. TPP
112. Geom++
113. SQL (postgres)
114. itflabtijtslwi
115. RegXy
116. Opal.rb
117. Squirrel
118. Pawn
119. Scala
120. Rebmu
121. Boo
122. PARI/GP
123. Red
124. Swift
125. BeanShell
126. Vala
127. Pike
128. Suneido
129. AWK
130. Neko
131. AngelScript
132. gosu
133. V
134. ALAGUF
135. BogusForth
136. Flaming Thunder
137. Caché ObjectScript
138. owl
139. Cardinal
140. Parser
141. Grin
142. Kitten
143. TwoDucks
144. Asymptote
145. CAT
146. IDL
147. Tiny
148. WTFZOMFG
149. Io
150. MuPAD
151. Java
152. Onyx
153. JBoss
154. S+
155. Hexish
156. yash
157. Improbable
158. wake
159. brat
160. busybox built-in shell
161. gammaplex
162. KTurtle
163. AGOL 68
164. Alice
165. SML/NJ
166. OCaml
167. CDuce
168. Underload
169. Simplex v.0.6
170. Minkolang 0.9
171. Fexl 7.0.3
172. Jolf
173. Vitsy
174. Y
175. Retina
176. Codename Dragon
177. Seriously
178. Reng v.3.3
179. Fuzzy Octo Guacamole
180. 05AB1E

^{(Feel free to edit these lists if they are incorrect or out of date.)}

This question works best when you sort by oldest.

NOTE: This is a trial question for a new challenge type I have in mind where each answer depends on the last and increases in difficulty. Come discuss it with us in the chatroom for this question or in meta.

Answer 1

Answer 171 - Fexl 7.0.3

Distance 7 from Answer 170.

#03w!(*#class jux{public static void main(String[] h){#
#System.Console.Writeln(//@\//Hello*}}print,cat<<#*)
put
"Hello World!"#(O).g!)S(#X` ;}}//printputsx;//-##E;]bye</>%#*)

I don't have enough reputation to comment on others' posts yet but I think that the other Answer 171 is invalid because it uses non-printable-ASCII chevrons (» and «).

Answer 2

Answer 179, Fuzzy Octo Guacamole

#^.`4mrZ"#03w(*#class jux!{public static void main(String[] h){#\
#System.Console.Writeln(//@\//Hello*}}print,cat<<#*)\
#put"

#^
is~ob"Hello World!"@)
gx`#(O)X.g!)S(#X` ;}}//printputs;//-##E;]bye</>#*)`kX

Pretty standard.

Since # is a comment, most of the lines are skipped.

After removing the comments, you get this:

is~ob"Hello World!"@)
gx`

Everything after the @ is not executed, since @ is end.

is~ob"Hello World!"@

The important parts is the "Hello World!"@ which pushes and prints (implicit output).

---

The rest:

i is invert, s is switch. This doesn't do anything important, moves 1 to the inactive stack (invert 0 and move).

~ob negates (bitwise) pushing -1, and sets the rest ToS (as a string) to b. This basically says b now pushes -1 to the stack.

Answer 3

Answer 41 - B.A.S.I.C.

#//;ah="*#[.>]trac":;cat<<@
#&&alert 
? "Hello World!"

Distance 2 from 40

You can test it here

First 2 lines are just REMs and the question mark is interpreted as PRINT

Answer 4

Answer 43 - fish shell

#ah="*#[.>]trac";cat<<
#&&alert 
echo "Hello World!
"

Levenshtein distance from #42: 7 (2 removal, 3 substitutions, 2 additions)

I hope an extra newline is okay.

Answer 5

Answer 45 - TCL

#ah="*#[.>]trac";cat<<
#&&alert 
puts "Hello World!";#\

Distance 7 from #44
;#\ is useless but I wanted to make the future answer more challenging.

http://ideone.com/P0PqMd

Answer 6

Answer 64 - Forth

\ %;dnl<vsh  o[.]c;cat;#&&alert" ">w "
.( Hello World!)\ bye";dnl</vsh>

Distance from Answer 63 : 7

Try it online here

Answer 7

Answer 68 - Betterave

~#%# %;dnl<vsh  o[.]c;cat;#&&alert" ">w ".in( print ~
$"Hello World!"~ #%!#bye";dnl</vsh>~

Distance from Answer 67 : 7

Answer 8

Answer 58 - Burlesque

"//echo o[.>]c;cat<<;#&&alert" "Hello World!"/vsh

Distance 7 from answer 57.

Answer 9

Answer 89 - Matlab

%#[]([.]c;main()
    disp 'Hello World!'
%#[;]:;#bye;dnl</>

Distance: 7 to answer 88.

Answer 10

Answer 91 - CASIO BASIC

'#[]([.]c;main()    {Show
"Hello World!"
'}%#[;]:;#bye;dnl</>

Distance from Answer 90 : 7

Answer 11

Answer 92 - VBScript

'#[]([.]c;main()    {
MSgBox"Hello World!"
'}/#[;]:;#bye;dnl</>

Distance 7 from Answer 91

Answer 12

Answer 98 - Kaffeine

//[]([.]#i
//main()    {
    alert('Hello World!');
//#[;]#bye;dnl</>

Distance: 7

Does it count if it's exactly JavaScript syntax, but technically a different language?

Answer 13

Answer 99 - Algoid

//[][.]#i
//main()    {
    print("Hello World!");
//#[;]#bye;dnl</>

Distance 7 from Answer 98

Answer 14

Answer 110 - SQLite

--#[][.]#i--#main(){puts(
select "Hello World!";
--#[;]#bye;dnl</>%

Distance 7 from Answer 109: modifed ay into el, added ect followed by a space, and ;.

Answer 15

Answer 113 - SQL (postgres)

--##[][.]#i--#main(){puts(
select'Hello World!' "
"--##[;]#bye;dnl</>%"

Distance 7 from 112

• remove "
• inserted carriage return before select
• substitute " with '
• remove carriage return," and space
• insert ' after !

Answer 16

Answer 116 - Opal.rb

#a/-##[][/]#i--#main(){
puts(
#sel/.*
/Hello World!/) 
#b/"-##[;]#bye;nl</>%"

Opal is a Ruby dialect compiled to Javascript. Opal's stdout points to the browser console.

Changes:

• line comment (3x)
• newline (2x)
• fix puts. Putsing regexes works surprisingly well...
• right parenthesis on L4.

Answer 17

Answer 118 - Pawn

//-##[][/]#i--#
main(){
printf(
//sel/.*
"Hello World!") 
}//"-##[;]#bye;nl</>%"

Distance from Answer 117 : 7

Try it here

Answer 18

Answer 119 - Scala

//-##[][/]#i--#main(){
println(
//sel/.*
"Hello World!") 
//"-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from Answer 118: deleted newline, replaced fby ln, deleted } and ;nl.

You can try it online here.

Answer 19

Answer 126 - Vala

//#{//-##[][/
void main(){//println(;\#//sel/.*}}
print("Hello World!");
}//#;//"-##[;]#bye</>%

Distance from Answer 125 : 4

Answer 20

Answer 127 - Pike

//#clas{//-##[][/
void main(){//println(;\#//sel/.*}}
write("Hello World!");
}//#;//"-##[;]#bye</>%

Tested here.

Distance 7 from answer 126.

Answer 21

Answer 128 - Suneido

//#class{//-##[][/void main(){//println(;\#//sel/.*}}
Print("Hello World!")
//#;//"-##[;]#bye</>%

Distance 7 from answer 127: deleted newline, changed w into P, inserted n, deleted e, then ; and }, and because I'm nice I used my last one to add the last s of class.

Never heard of Suneido before today but according to the language specs, Print("...") is the print statement and // the comment chars for single line comments.

Answer 22

Answer XXX - Commodore BASIC

Verdict by @CalvinsHobbies, OP:

Sorry but as clever as this may be, PETSCII isn't ASCII. If this kind of shifting was allowed then arguably any 97 unique characters could be used. This is invalid.

...but for those who want the cleverness anyhow:

---

1dA//#{//-##[][/ void main(){println(;\#//sel/.*}}
2print("Hello World!");
3dA//#;//"-##[;]#bye</>%

Distance from Answer 125: 7

The "trick" comes from the fact that there are some little-known abbreviations in C64 BASIC. There's no abbreviation for REM, but it turned out dA for DATA served just as well...as long as you never try to read it!!

Technically speaking one has to bend the rules at least a little, as the Commodore 64 doesn't use ASCII...it uses PETSCII. Here is the "shifted" PETSCII equivalent. Thus a lowercase a is actually 0x41 (dec 65)...and an uppercase A maps to 0xC1 (dec 93) in the "shifted PETSCII" character set.

Next there are some characters with no exact equivalent. For instance, ASCII open brace { 0x7B (dec 123). The PETSCII standard would show that as a cross (✚). Yet if you write it directly into screen memory (as with POKE 1024,123) you get a box in the lower left, like Unicode's "quadrant lower left" character (▖). Unfortunately there are no PETSCII equivalents for the likes of [ 0x5B (dec 91)...only screen memory codes.

Hence I've substituted the screen memory equivalents into source for the codes of the five characters that have no ordinary mapping:

• { (0x7B) => screen code 0x7B => quadrant lower left (solid) CBM+F key
• } (0x7D) => screen code 0x7D => quadrant upper left (hollow) CBM+X key
• [ (0x5B) => screen code 0x5B => cross bar no known key combo
• ] (0x5D) => screen code 0x5D => vertical line SHIFT+minus key
• \ (0x5C) => screen code 0x5C => left half filled in block CBM+J key

Because I don't actually know how on the keyboard to get the cross bar other than POKE-ing into screen memory, that's what I did. I typed the program in with a dummy character at first in the three positions where open braces existed and then wrote some poke statements as shown. You could put any character there really, but I wanted the code to be as true to the ASCII values as possible.

Voila. Of course when you're done with the POKE statements you'll have to cursor back up and hit ENTER on the code lines again so the source changes will take.

Be sure to get into shifted PETSCII mode before you run it, with CBM-shift or POKE 53272,23. How the program is produced isn't that relevant, as it could be saved and loaded, but this just gets it all on one screen.

Answer 23

Answer 131 - AngelScript

//#class{//-ta[][ 
void main(){//println(;\#//Hello*}}

print("Hello World!");}
//#;//"-##[;]#bye</>%

Distance from Answer 130 : 7

Answer 24

Answer 135 - BogusForth

"/#class jux{//-ta[][static void main(){//println(;\#//Hello*}}

print""Hello World!"i"#!puts
#;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from answer 134. (5 necessary, 2 for ic in static)

Answer 25

Answer 147 - Tiny

#class jux{//-ta][static void main(String[]){System.out.println(;\#//Hello*}}print,
"Hello World!"#;write"putsx;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from answer 146

1. remove ;
2. remove /
3. remove /
4. removed \n (newline) to have print on above line
5. added # after "Hello World" to comment out the rest of the trash.
6. u int out
7. t in out (hoping to see that java answer)

At this point I'm just looking through EVERY language in esolangs.org... haha

Answer 26

Answer 154 - S+

#//#class jux{public static void main(String[] h){
#System.out.println(//;\#//Hello*}}print,
cat('Hello World!')#;}}//print#putsx;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from answer 153.

Answer 27

Answer 155 - Hexish

0B00class jux{public static void main(String[] h){
#System.Cont.Wrintln(//;\#//Hello*}}print,
cat('Hello World!')#;}}//print#putsx;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from 154

Im going for c# now!

Answer 28

Answer 159 - brat

#B00class jux{public static void main(String[] h){#
#System.Console.Wrinteln(//;\//Hello*}}print,cat<<<
p "Hello World!"#` ;}}//print#putsx;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

Distance from Answer 158 - 7

2 necessary and 5 for flowing towards C#

Answer 29

Answer 160 - Busybox built-in shell

#class jux{public static void main(String[] h){#
#System.Console.Wrinteln(//;\//Hello*}}print,cat<<<
echo "Hello World!"#` ;}}//print#putsx;//-##[;]#bye</>%"

4 necessary changes, removed 3 characters to move towards C#.

Answer 30

Answer 161 - Gammaplex

#class jux{public static void main(String[] h){#
#System.Console.Wrinteln(//@\//Hello*}}print,cat<<<
RrXoX"Hello World!"X` ;}}//print#putsx;//-##E;]#bye</>%"

Distance 7 from answer 160.

Despite the positions of @ and E, they are necessary. Sorry for editing late. Rollback if you already started working on this.

Gammaplex is yet another 2D language. The official interpreter will ignore all new lines, then rearrange all characters into a rectangle with the same width of the first line. The above code is like this in Gammaplex:

#class jux{public static void main(String[] h){#
#System.Console.Wrinteln(//@\//Hello*}}print,cat
<<<RrXoX"Hello World!"X` ;}}//print#putsx;//-##E
;]#bye</>%"