At CQU (in Australia) I remember being lucky enough to have been one of the guinea pigs of the IT course at the time that it first started, and the introductory

At CQU (in Australia) I remember being lucky enough to have been one of the guinea pigs of the IT course at the time that it first started, and the introductory language was (Turbo) Pascal. The following year if you wanted to go further with programming other languages were offered like C++, LISP, assembly, COBOL, etc. The intakes the following year started straight into C++ and the drop-out rate was incredible. I know if I started with C++ I would have struggled and probably given up and dropped out too. Programming should be easy and fun when you learn, you shouldn't have to feel like an idiot.