However, if you want your Computer Science majors to be able to create [...] they need to learn C/C++. It doesn't have to be the first language introduced. It

However, if you want your Computer Science majors to be able to create [...] they need to learn C/C++. It doesn't have to be the first language introduced. It should be second. My other comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8004582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8004582 CS is about understanding the underlying models and concepts rather than a language. Programming Language implementations are exploratory tools critical to understanding those underlying models and concepts. Indeed, in my experience the "CS is about understanding the concepts" logic is more often than not used as an excuse NOT to teach C.