"Hello, World!" is the traditional first program for beginning programming in a new language.
The Hello World! program will greet me, the caller.
If I tell the program my name is Alice, it will greet me by saying "Hello, Alice!".
If I neglect to give it my name, it will greet me by saying "Hello, World!"
As programmers mature, they eventually want to test their code.
Here we simulate Test-Driven Development (TDD), where you write your tests before writing any functionality. The simulation comes in the form of a pre-written test suite, which will signal that you have solved the problem.
It will also provide you with a safety net to explore other solutions without breaking the functionality.
- Run the test file and pick one test that's failing.
- Write some code to fix the test you picked.
- Re-run the tests to confirm the test is now passing.
- Repeat from step 1.
- Submit your solution.
Submissions are encouraged to be general, within reason. Having said that, it's also important not to over-engineer a solution.
It's important to remember that the goal is to make code as expressive and readable as we can. However, solutions to the hello-world exercise will be not be reviewed by a person, but by Travis CI, who will offer an encouraging word.