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I think JavaScript is a great intro language. Note, it's being used as an introductory language. I use it for teaching kids & it works wonders. Here's why: * Y

I think JavaScript is a great intro language. Note, it's being used as an introductory language. I use it for teaching kids & it works wonders. Here's why: * You can show off what you develop to your friends because everyone has a web browser. Being able to show off your work is very important to students' feeling of accomplishment. * You can go to any website & start modifying their code. People love doing this when they start coding. Most of us that learned in the 90s probably learned this way. * No special software/tools are needed. This is a bit of a repeat of the above two but it makes getting started so much simpler when you can focus on the code & not the environment. * You can teach server side & front side development. * You can teach functional programming & object oriented programming basics. JavaScript is everywhere. With the skills they learn they can write code for the web, games, IoT devices, mobile devices, etc. Once they advance & start learning more advanced programming, then they can open up Pandora's box. I believe an intro class should be about teaching very basic concepts & creating passion for the subject. I think JavaScript does a great job creating a snowball effect when it comes to learning programming.

jnbiche 10y ago
It's a great intro language. But it's a poor language for university-level CS major students (I realize that most of these classes using JS are not CS-track classes).
- mattferderer 10y ago
  I agree that a quality university should teach better languages for the bulk of the major. The class does say "No prior programming experience required" though. I'm making a similar guess as I believe you are that a lot of non-CS students are taking this class. If that's the case, it works great for them if they want to use a simple language to do some automation later in life in some non programming related job. From what I can tell, this class isn't part of the CS degree -http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/computerscience/#bachelortext http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/compu... unless this hasn't been updated yet.

jnbiche 10y ago

It's a great intro language. But it's a poor language for university-level CS major students (I realize that most of these classes using JS are not CS-track classes).

mattferderer 10y ago
I agree that a quality university should teach better languages for the bulk of the major. The class does say "No prior programming experience required" though. I'm making a similar guess as I believe you are that a lot of non-CS students are taking this class. If that's the case, it works great for them if they want to use a simple language to do some automation later in life in some non programming related job. From what I can tell, this class isn't part of the CS degree -http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/computerscience/#bachelortext http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofengineering/compu... unless this hasn't been updated yet.