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What Should Be a Student’s First Programming Language?
- mimixco 5y agoThe answers are in this article but not explicitly stated that way. It's JS for grownups (Stanford just switched) and Scratch for kids. I think those are the right answers and I would propose MS MakeCode as a beautiful marriage of both.
- errantmind 5y agoIt depends, if the student is studying CS, then a typed language 'close' to the hardware can be a good accompaniment to most CS curriculums. If Math / ML is their focus, then likely Python and R. If web / design is their focus, then JavaScript / Typescript. Writing software will eventually be seen as a form of literacy used to enhance a person's professional skills, not as a job unto itself (outside of a few specialist SWE domains).
- vaxman 5y agoRE: The Article - Python is good for a lot of things except high performance, mission critical and web-browser-based code. RE: The Question -Everyone should learn FORTH first and C second ;) but that's not practical anymore. For those with Apple gear, I recommend Swift (in "Swift Playgrounds"), otherwise I recommend CircuitPython (on Raspberry Pi) to all but mid-career professionals. For mid-career professionals, I'm going to recommend JavaScript because of needing to build things that are of practical value rather than spending countless hours on building foundational skills and then migrating to JavaScript, all while carrying the weight of the world. For just about everyone else, Python3 as your first computer language is The Way. PS: I have over four decades of industry experience and am not eligible for the senior menu at Denny's yet.