For years, the standard way to introduce a new programming language has been the "Hello World" app. It's everybody's first program, and the first thing you see in most language tutorials.

I hate Hello World, and so should you. Is it possible to think of anything more boring as your first experience of programming? With modern programming languages, it's just as easy to write something interactive and fun. So why don't we?

As an alternative, Andrew Wooldridge brings us the Click Me Challenge. It's a game that you can write in any language and in just a few lines of code. Want to play? You can try it here.

Hooked? How well did you do? I bet you scored more than 5 before you got bored, didn't you?

Even in itself, this is better than Hello World. But it gets better. Using this program as the starting point, you can teach your readers every aspect of programming. Just keep finding ways to make the game better -- and you can introduce one new programming concept after another.

By incrementally adding features, you can teach readers about User Interface widgets, network APIs, variables, randomization, and more. You'd be surprised how little needs to be added to turn this into a compelling game.

Frankly for my next programming tutorial book, I've every plan to have the author write "Click Me Challenge" chapter 1, and spend the rest of the book adding features to it to make it more fun -- and use the full feature set of the language. With an imaginative author, the book could be fantastic. What do you think?

A few simple enhancements that have already been provided:

Click for points, RPG edition.
Click for points, the strategy game.
Progress Wars, a social game approach.

If you're a coder, why not write your own? See the full details.

Are you a budding author wanting to take the Click Me Challenge to book level? Email me on davidb@packtpub.com.

Or post your thoughts in the comments.