Javascript is a great language to learn to program because it gives you feedback. Middle/High school students get something showing up and keeping them engaged.

Javascript is a great language to learn to program because it gives you feedback. Middle/High school students get something showing up and keeping them engaged. However, in uni I think Javascript is a very bad first language because there is a level of focus expected (and required eventually for them to be good developers) that you don't need Javascript to help with. It's better to pick a language like Scheme or Python to teach the /ideas/ of programming first and then transition to C/C++ or even Java.