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Exactly! I gave up on programming in high school when my borrowed C++ textbook started getting into memory management and I couldn't stop my head from spinning

Exactly! I gave up on programming in high school when my borrowed C++ textbook started getting into memory management and I couldn't stop my head from spinning. I didn't even know simpler languages like Python existed until I started college. I'm all for learning the hard stuff, but programming is such a different way of thinking from most things that it's hard enough to get beginners into the mindset, let alone be comfortable and confident with the syntax.

dijit 10y ago
This will sound like one-upmanship and I definitely do not mean it that way. When I was a kid I wanted to code to be like the cool dudes I heard about on the internet. The only book I could get was a book on COBOL, with a compiler which would only run on DOS. COBOL is a horrible language and I never learned to code, now I'm 26 and can do the basics with python.. I'm a sysadmin, maybe that would have been different with a language that actually functioned in the modern day (at the time). I feel somewhat similarly for swift/rust and the younger generation, there is a very high barrier to entry for C/C++, which flavour should you use? C99 or C11, what compiler, and what flags are needed for compiling your flavour?.. how do I google errors "C null dereference" when "C" is short enough a letter to be ignored by most search indexes? Personally, I see initiatives such as Apples as a good thing and something I wish I'd had as a kid, even if they have a more sordid agenda.. it's not like coding skills and critical/logical thinking are not transferable skills.