We can bitch about how language implementations never live up to our ideals every day of the week, but people trying to get good advice on where to start get ca

We can bitch about how language implementations never live up to our ideals every day of the week, but people trying to get good advice on where to start get caught in the crossfire. Heck, I started with BASIC, followed by C++. Now that I've got those out of the way, I know I can tackle all kinds of bullshit. Python still seems most reasonable as a first language, to me. Not my favorite, these days, but local maxima, you know? (Probably followed by C, then Prolog. Lua and Erlang are practical syntheses, and should be picked up easily afterward.)