I'm sorry if this might be slightly off-topic, as it focusses on the 'new BASIC' part of your question. However, the points outlined might be helpful to underst

I'm sorry if this might be slightly off-topic, as it focusses on the 'new BASIC' part of your question. However, the points outlined might be helpful to understand why Javascript isn't the best first language for pedagogy. Compared to most languages, Python is possibly the best contender to the title of 'new BASIC'. It has an implementation that is more consistent than Javascript's and can even scale up to larger code-bases. The latter, I learnt in my early days, will soon become a necessity when it becomes difficult to keep track of your 20K lines of BASIC code! Python could be a gateway to both server-side and client-side programmer. The latter could be useful while learning programming and can provide instant gratification with full-screen graphics say using Pygame/Pyglet. When the young programmer becomes confident enough that he wants to let his friends play with his creations, he can create web-apps using Python (say using Django), which seems to be the distribution mechanism of choice, going forward. I agree that having an IDE is perhaps not a necessity compared to a REPL. There have been IDEs like Turbo Pascal which have near instantaneous compile times, but the learners tend to become overly dependent on IDEs. They are often unable to distinguish between the IDE and language, which is clearly undesirable. Python works well with modest requirements. It has several REPL implementations (for e.g. the excellent ipython). On the other hand development is breezy even with simple syntax highlighting editor (for e.g. Notepad++). Javascript has several gotchas which might confuse or dissuade a learner. I think this is a hangover from its early implementations than a language flaw per se. However, it prevents me from recommending it to a beginner.