Without going into the specifics, I'd argue that, in general, teaching programming using a 'multi-paradigm' language (Python, Javascript, Ruby) is inherently mo

Without going into the specifics, I'd argue that, in general, teaching programming using a 'multi-paradigm' language (Python, Javascript, Ruby) is inherently more confusing than picking one that focuses more exclusively on one paradigm. I tried to do as much functional programming in Javascript as I could, and yet I feel I only really learned it when I started working with languages that are 'heavily' functional. Of course, I'm not saying that a 'multi-paradigm' language for teaching is bad, but personally I'm inclined to think that it might be better to start with something more pure. Ruby might actually not be a bad choice in this scenario. If you avoid the 'blocks, lamdbas and procs', it seems to me like a great introduction to OO programming. Despite this, for my day to day programming I would also choose Python over Ruby. But perhaps not for teaching.