I illustrated the post with Python since it's my language of choice, but honestly, many of Python's benefits as a teaching language apply equally well to other

I illustrated the post with Python since it's my language of choice, but honestly, many of Python's benefits as a teaching language apply equally well to other modern languages. If we can agree that experimentation is one of the most powerful ways to develop an understanding of a system, then by going with Java, you're consciously eschewing languages which support that goal by being: 1. Interpreted. It's hard to overstate the value of an interactive interpreter, which is in many respects akin to having a second instructor available for the students, on-demand. It can instantly answer questions about its environment, it makes exploration and experimentation trivial, and it's great when lecturing, as you can immediately explore any "what-if's" that your students raise. 2. More expressive. Aphyr demonstrated this pretty eloquently in another comment, but the less code that it takes to accomplish a task, the less code you have to understand before you're able to build something useful, and the easier it is to experiment as you go. 3. Multi-paradigm. If you're teaching someone programming, you want to be able to expose them to procedures, functions, objects, methods, recursion, etc. If you can do all of that in one language, you lower the mental barrier that your students must overcome before grasping each successive topic. I believe that those facilities are great assets for both exposition by the teacher and exploration by the students, and I do not immediately see a compelling argument in Java's favor which sufficiently justifies foregoing the above pedagogic benefits. If the goal is to teach and create understanding, then surely the instructor should employ the tools that most readily support that objective.