> you don't know what a beginner will or won't try to do when working on their own This is true regardless of which language you use to start with. Computing i

> you don't know what a beginner will or won't try to do when working on their own This is true regardless of which language you use to start with. Computing in general is so ridiculously over-complex and constructed entirely of layered kludges, that beginners are going to trip and fall into lots of these crevasses no matter what, unfortunately. The first lesson advantage of being able to start the coding immediately (everyone has a browser) is not to be dismissed. If you try to do this in Python - otherwise an excellent choice - you will spend the first ~day of the course installing Python and explaining about command lines, editors and the REPL. This seems trivial to us, but it's a huge hurdle for many first time programmers. The JS version of this is "go to this URL, then right click and select Inspect. Start typing in the console."