> A huge reason why C syntax is "not weird" is because its weirdness has been normalized. I didn't realize how absolutely bizarre some of the things in it were

> A huge reason why C syntax is "not weird" is because its weirdness has been normalized. I didn't realize how absolutely bizarre some of the things in it were until I was an undergraduate teaching assistant for a C programming class for Math and Engineering majors. To give another PoV: I've taught javascript to absolute beginners (graphics design students coming from humanities studies with pretty-much zero programming or general "scientific" ability) and the syntax, fairly close from C, was very much not an issue for them, unlike the maths required ; I had to spend much more time explaining how transformations in a 2D plane, vectors, etc... do work, than correcting syntax mistakes. In ~20 hours of class they were pretty much all able to write small programs with for-loops, conditions, etc. which did nice visual effects in p5.js so I'd say that teaching the basics of programming is an entirely solved problem in 2021 ; whatever the topic, you cannot expect to teach stuff faster to a whole classroom.