Answer 73 - ///

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

Distance 7 from answer 72.

Answer 16 - Julia

println("Hello World!")

Distance from 15 = 2

• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ Which answer 15 have you used? \$\endgroup\$

  Beta Decay

  – Beta Decay

  2014年10月27日 09:21:39 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 9:21
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ @BetaDecay I had linked to it, but I've changed it now that the C one was deleted. \$\endgroup\$

  Martin Ender

  – Martin Ender

  2014年10月27日 09:22:17 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 9:22

Answer 18 - JavaScript

alert("Hello World!");

Lev. Dist from A#17 = 5

• \$\begingroup\$ awww, so close! you beat me by 15 secs :( \$\endgroup\$

  user4768

  – user4768

  2014年10月27日 09:31:27 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 9:31
• \$\begingroup\$ @Stacey maybe.... \$\endgroup\$

  MAKZ

  – MAKZ

  2014年10月27日 09:32:22 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 9:32
• \$\begingroup\$ An alert window isn't stdout...? \$\endgroup\$

  zamnuts

  – zamnuts

  2014年10月27日 18:59:44 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 18:59
• 2
  \$\begingroup\$ @zamnuts It is commonly accepted on PPCG to use alert in Javascript as it has no real stdout. \$\endgroup\$

  Ingo Bürk

  – Ingo Bürk

  2014年10月27日 19:01:46 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 19:01
• 3
  \$\begingroup\$ @zamnuts console.log has nothing to do with stdout. It's a debug tool. Again, this is commonly accepted here. We shouldn't litter the comments of this answer with this discussion; feel free to start a discussion on meta about it (if it doesn't exist yet). \$\endgroup\$

  Ingo Bürk

  – Ingo Bürk

  2014年10月27日 19:05:00 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 19:05

Answer 25 - Stata

display "Hello World!"

Distance: 6 ([-> ", ]-> ", and addition of di and pl)

Answer 24 - M30W

say [Hello World!]

Distance: 5

• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ the W must be capitalized to print "Hello World!". \$\endgroup\$

  user32377

  – user32377

  2014年10月27日 10:18:44 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 10:18
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ Well, now I know why I've never heard of M30W. +1 \$\endgroup\$

  Pharap

  – Pharap

  2014年10月28日 08:33:31 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 8:33

Answer 27 - ActionScript 2

trace("Hello World!")

Distance: 7 (Disp -> trac = 4, +e( = 2, +) = 1 = 4+2+1 = 7)

From Answer 26

• \$\begingroup\$ Why 2? This is ActionScript 1. \$\endgroup\$

  Pierre Arlaud

  – Pierre Arlaud

  2014年10月28日 08:58:10 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 8:58
• \$\begingroup\$ I used to program in AS2. I did so in flash, on the timeline. There I can have a single line of code. Then I moved to AS3, and I've been using document classes ever since. I wasn't sure whether one can use a single line of code like this in ActionScript 3, so I labelled it AS2. \$\endgroup\$

  user32377

  – user32377

  2014年10月28日 09:02:24 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 9:02

Answer 36 - Clojure

;ah="*#[.>]trac":;cat<<@
(pr"Hello World!"
)

Distance 7 from answer 35

; makes the rest of the line a comment, and (pr "Hello World!") does the printing

• \$\begingroup\$ Love the use of the commenting \$\endgroup\$

  sydan

  – sydan

  2015年02月13日 11:51:27 +00:00

  Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 11:51

Answer 60 - SGML

Heck, if HTML counts…

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

Distance from Answer 59 : 7

• \$\begingroup\$ I remember learning that HTML was SGML. This isn't true today; HTML syntax is not SGML syntax (html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/syntax.html#parsing), so HTML is not SGML. \$\endgroup\$

  kernigh

  – kernigh

  2014年11月21日 20:08:46 +00:00

  Commented Nov 21, 2014 at 20:08
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ @kernigh, I know. I was merely saying that if HTML counts sufficiently as a language to post an answer in it (see the preceding answer, #59), then why not SGML. \$\endgroup\$

  msh210

  – msh210

  2014年11月23日 00:08:37 +00:00

  Commented Nov 23, 2014 at 0:08

Answer 9- Ruby

puts "\x48ello World!"

Distance: 4

Answer 13 - R

#[puts];
cat("Hello World!")

Distance = 5

Answer 20 - HyperTalk

answer "Hello World!"

Distance: 7

Answer 31 - Visual FoxPro

*#]trac
? "Hello World!"

Distance: 3 from Answer 30

Not tested of course, but * begins a comment and ? "String" prints String.

• \$\begingroup\$ How on earth have you ever come across and vFox? Well done/sorry :-)! \$\endgroup\$

  Ben

  – Ben

  2014年10月27日 22:20:44 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 22:20
• 2
  \$\begingroup\$ @Ben By browsing the list of "hello world" examples on Wikipedia and looking for short ones ;) \$\endgroup\$

  Doorknob

  – Doorknob

  2014年10月27日 23:55:08 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:55

Answer 70 - Emacs Lisp

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

Distance of 7 from Answer 69. Didn't need any changes to compile, but cleans up a bit.

• 2
  \$\begingroup\$ I would've cleaned up some of the odd things like 'dnl<vsh' instead of the common comment characters. \$\endgroup\$

  agweber

  – agweber

  2014年10月28日 15:12:03 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 15:12
• \$\begingroup\$ @agweber why make things too easy? :P \$\endgroup\$

  resueman

  – resueman

  2014年10月28日 15:16:39 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 15:16
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ @resueman Because in the question it was stated that the goal was to make the chain as long as possible. \$\endgroup\$

  11684

  – 11684

  2014年10月31日 21:17:33 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 21:17

Answer 96 - Rust 0.13

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

Distance 6 from answer 95.

• \$\begingroup\$ I was sluggishly monitoring this for "C" answer to finally appear in order to try Rusting it... \$\endgroup\$

  Vi.

  – Vi.

  2014年10月29日 21:08:17 +00:00

  Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 21:08

Answer 107 - MediaWiki markup

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

There is already HTML, SGML and Markdown. Why not MediaWiki?

You can see it here.

Distance 7 from Answer 106.

• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ Note: The spaces after main() is a tab (introduced for Makefile). I didn't change it. \$\endgroup\$

  jimmy23013

  – jimmy23013

  2014年10月30日 06:47:56 +00:00

  Commented Oct 30, 2014 at 6:47
• \$\begingroup\$ Someone should get rid of it ... \$\endgroup\$

  Optimizer

  – Optimizer

  2014年10月30日 09:49:37 +00:00

  Commented Oct 30, 2014 at 9:49

Answer 121 - Boo

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

Happy Halloween!

Distance 7 from Answer 120. Nothing fancy: added three # comment characters, and added rint after p.

Boo has syntax inspired by Python, but is a separate language with unique features built on the .NET CLI.

• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ What happened to answer 120? \$\endgroup\$

  user10766

  – user10766

  2014年10月31日 17:19:38 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:19
• \$\begingroup\$ @hosch250 seemed to just be a typo, it was relative to 120 and linked, just mislabeled. Edited \$\endgroup\$

  HostileFork says dont trust SE

  – HostileFork says dont trust SE

  2014年10月31日 17:21:57 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:21
• \$\begingroup\$ OK, I thought that might be the problem. \$\endgroup\$

  user10766

  – user10766

  2014年10月31日 17:25:16 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:25
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ I meant to complete it like Boo Yeah! \$\endgroup\$

  Optimizer

  – Optimizer

  2014年10月31日 17:43:06 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 17:43
• 2
  \$\begingroup\$ Appropriate language given today's date. \$\endgroup\$

  Amory

  – Amory

  2014年10月31日 21:47:04 +00:00

  Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 21:47

Answer 32 - VBA

a="*#]trac":? "Hello World!"

Distance: 7 from Answer 31

Runs from the immediate window. The colon : is a line sepator that allows multiple lines of code to be written on the same line. (Anything run from the immediate window has to be a one liner.) The ? is a shortcut for printing to the immediate window.

• \$\begingroup\$ I count more than 5: a = " is already 5, and then there is ": and the newline transformed into a space. \$\endgroup\$

  plannapus

  – plannapus

  2014年10月27日 12:22:40 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 12:22
• \$\begingroup\$ You might want to dump the spaces, because right now it's 8. \$\endgroup\$

  Scimonster

  – Scimonster

  2014年10月27日 12:26:06 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 12:26
• \$\begingroup\$ Shoot. I forgot to remove the extra space and there is already another answer @Scimonster. \$\endgroup\$

  RubberDuck

  – RubberDuck

  2014年10月27日 12:27:34 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 12:27
• \$\begingroup\$ I left a comment on the other answer notifying them so they can fix it after you do. \$\endgroup\$

  Scimonster

  – Scimonster

  2014年10月27日 12:28:19 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 12:28
• 3
  \$\begingroup\$ I like how you introduced a variable. More "programmatic" solution than just commenting some things out. \$\endgroup\$

  agtoever

  – agtoever

  2014年10月28日 11:02:29 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 11:02

Answer 167 - CDuce

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

Distance 7 from Answer 166, removed _string

Nothing special, most difficult part was finding the language.

(* *) makes a multiline comment, print prints the string

Answer 17 - Scilab

disp("Hello World!")

Distance = 6 to Answer 16

• \$\begingroup\$ I'm way late, but this won't work: MATLAB uses single quotes for strings, not double quotes... that might have derailed the whole train :( \$\endgroup\$

  Dang Khoa

  – Dang Khoa

  2014年10月27日 23:47:44 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:47
• \$\begingroup\$ I haven't tried running it, but changing this to Scilab might fix it \$\endgroup\$

  Sp3000

  – Sp3000

  2014年10月27日 23:58:25 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:58
• \$\begingroup\$ @DangKhoa Aww, that's too bad. But it's fixed now. \$\endgroup\$

  Calvin's Hobbies

  – Calvin's Hobbies

  2014年10月27日 23:59:02 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:59

Answer 50 - Racket

;@echo o#[.>]tac";cat<<;#&&alert 
(print "Hello World!");\

Distance is 7 from the previous answer. Needs to be run in the shell.

Answer 62 - MUMPS

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

Distance: 6

Answer 88 - Postscript

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

Distance: 6 insertions to answer 87.

Back to real programming languages.

Answer 120 - Rebmu

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

Distance 7 from Answer 119

• { and } are asymmetric string delimiters for an alternate representation of strings permitting balanced nested pairs, embedded quotes, etc. {Hey {it's} "legal"}. Add one at the beginning then two braces to create a balanced string after the .* cost 3

• Standalone string literals not passed to any function are skipped by the evaluator, so that literal has no effect.

• At the outset of the program, P is a single character abbreviation for PR, itself an abbreviation for PRINT. (If you wanted you could overwrite it and use as a variable in code golf and still access printing through PR, and if you overwrite that you could use PRINT. Or set X to point to the function value of P before you override it, etc.) cost 1

• Parentheses are structural elements that can be used for arbitrary purposes (imagine if Lisp had [] and () as different "flavors" of series you could metaprogram with, with [] having the traditional "list" behavior). In the default evaluator parens just do precedence, so there's no significance to putting it around a string literal. Added a paren instead of subtracting in case it would be helpful, either way it's cost 1

• Semicolon comments to end of line, get rid of last line using that with an insertion so that the comment comes after it. (Would have been 1 cheaper to do that with the first 2 lines but this is perhaps a better setup.) cost 1

• Spend extra random character to join println onto main(){ cost 1

Answer 168 Underload

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

Distance 7 from Answer 167

Answer 34 - Zsh

ah="*#[.>]trac":;<<@
Hello World!
@

Distance: 7 from Answer 33.

Since I can't craft the solution I wanted to go with from the previous one, here's another solution instead:

Answer 40 - Clipper

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

NB: There is a trailing space at the end of line 2.
Distance: 6

Clipper is unique in that it has four different commenting techniques of which I've used two above:

* A comment
// A comment
&& A comment
/* A multiline
comment */

? is obviously the print command.

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

• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ What's the point of the final comment? \$\endgroup\$

  Ypnypn

  – Ypnypn

  2014年10月27日 20:52:30 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 20:52
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ Absolutely useless ! \$\endgroup\$

  Michael M.

  – Michael M.

  2014年10月27日 20:54:12 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 20:54
• 3
  \$\begingroup\$ It's only challenging for a language that doesn't use # for comments ;) \$\endgroup\$

  user4768

  – user4768

  2014年10月27日 20:55:12 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 20:55
• 2
  \$\begingroup\$ I thought I can get if 0 [puts "Hello World!"] at some point... to make it not only challenging but also confusing. \$\endgroup\$

  jimmy23013

  – jimmy23013

  2014年10月27日 21:39:53 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 21:39
• 7
  \$\begingroup\$ -1 for deliberately making future answerers' job harder. Some of us are trying to do the exact opposite, because that first line is really annoying. \$\endgroup\$

  user344

  – user344

  2014年10月27日 21:40:14 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 21:40

Answer 48 - Lisp

;@echo o#[.>]trac";cat<<
;#&&alert 
(princ "Hello World!");\

Distance = 7

• 5
  \$\begingroup\$ Is that supposed to be princ? \$\endgroup\$

  TRiG

  – TRiG

  2014年10月27日 23:09:43 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:09
• 5
  \$\begingroup\$ @TRiG It's not a typo. stackoverflow.com/questions/19756296/… \$\endgroup\$

  Etheryte

  – Etheryte

  2014年10月27日 23:17:21 +00:00

  Commented Oct 27, 2014 at 23:17
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$ This doesn't say which Lisp. I guess this was meant to be Common Lisp. \$\endgroup\$

  kernigh

  – kernigh

  2014年11月21日 20:00:11 +00:00

  Commented Nov 21, 2014 at 20:00

Answer 54 - Mouse

~//echo o[.>]c;cat<<;#&&alert (printf
"Hello World!"$

Distance 7 from Answer 53.

• 4
  \$\begingroup\$ I just realized what this is starting to remind me of... \$\endgroup\$

  Calvin's Hobbies

  – Calvin's Hobbies

  2014年10月28日 01:40:27 +00:00

  Commented Oct 28, 2014 at 1:40
• \$\begingroup\$ upvote for cat & mouse :) \$\endgroup\$

  CodeManX

  – CodeManX

  2014年11月05日 02:26:13 +00:00

  Commented Nov 5, 2014 at 2:26

Answer 61 - M4

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

Distance from Answer 60 : 7

• printable-ascii
• hello-world
• answer-chaining