It is a test that you can go from written code to an output that is human readable. This is the basic steps to allow us to use printf debugging. Until you get

It is a test that you can go from written code to an output that is human readable. This is the basic steps to allow us to use printf debugging. Until you get to this point, it can be hard to be sure your code is actually working or even compiling or if you have established a way to report errors. As other poster's have commented, for most languages the code for this is trivial but the importance is that it tests the entire compile/link/execute tool chain which may not be as trivial to setup.