I am blown away by both the picks and the justifications given. I've programmed in all of these languages; it's hard for me to see that assembly language ought

I am blown away by both the picks and the justifications given. I've programmed in all of these languages; it's hard for me to see that assembly language ought to be a top pick or that the reason to start with Python is to learn proper indentation. Picking the right language to program in deserves a more thoughtful article than this. Simplicity (of the language and its application), usefulness, and pedagogical value are to me the factors one should consider. Python isn't the simplest language (Pascal is simpler by far) but it is simple enough and is so useful and supports modern programming method that it would be my first recommendation. Javascript is so useful for web related programming and is simple enough (despite a lot of ugly features) that it is my second choice. C is a flexible, useful language and educational language. It's a bit old school so it would be my third choice. Pascal is beautifully simple but is not that useful to learn. Java is a very useful important language, but has too much boilerplate and too big an ecosystem for beginners. C++ is the Formula One of programming languages and is better learned after getting past the learner's permit level. Assembly language is not very useful to most programmers and takes too much work and would likely be discouraging.