4 ms·
You will find very few students eager to learn Pascal in 2019 as their first introductory language. I say this as someone who grew up in the 90s with my father
by acbart 7y ago
You will find very few students eager to learn Pascal in 2019 as their first introductory language.
I say this as someone who grew up in the 90s with my father's Pascal textbook and a deep love for Turbo Pascal.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoMost kids don’t know much about languages. But its hype cycle is past, I agree. It fits the requirements given above however. A brand new Pyscal lovechild would be awesome.
- pjmlp 7y agoTypescript, Kotlin, Swift fit the bill quite nicely.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoThe last two are decent, but don't think they are simple enough. Python has lost much of it as well.
- acbart 7y agoWell if we're talking about K-8, that's probably true. I don't know about high school. For undergraduate students, you better believe that they'll find out what languages are "real" and "not real" very fast. Whether they're at all accurate is another matter, but they pick up opinions. Whether it's their cousin at another school or that one kid in the class who's been hacking since he was five or just a grumpy senior, someone will come in and fill their heads with something. I have my own set of (hopefully well-educated) biases I give them, but I don't like having to argue too much with them when we're starting out. A new Pascal would be nice. I loved how much we had to set things up. You start off the entire program by listing out all the variables and types you need! What a fun concept. That would be nice to enforce with my students.
- mixmastamyk 7y agoYep. I wouldn’t worry too much on popularity though. After Pascal I took Fortran as an elective and it was decades past its prime. I didn’t begrudge the opportunity, I enjoyed learning. We should be learning to program rather than a specific tool. One popular and one academic lang is a good trade off.