FWIW this was common in British universities in the early 2000s -- the intro CS courses would be taught in a functional language like SML or OCaml. I think the

FWIW this was common in British universities in the early 2000s -- the intro CS courses would be taught in a functional language like SML or OCaml. I think the professors liked that you don't end up with this situation where half the class already learned C and is bored, and half didn't and are going to need to spend a few months understanding what a pointer is. Everyone's equally unfamiliar with SML. I think they've all switched to Python or Java now, though.