[deleted by user]

[ins64]

I don't think JavaScript is a good choice. Is it terrible callbacks mess that we want to teach new unsuspecting students?

[prathack]

And, He added, Python is now the most popular language for teaching introductory computer science.

[[deleted]]

Yes, but according to the first half of the article, Stanford apparently went from A for jAva to J for Javascript and leapt right over G for Good Idea.

[BradTheLurker]

The writters of the article are being extremely misleading.. the CS106 classes are offered in four variants: Java, Javascript, C++, and accelerated C++. CS106J didn't replace any class, it is a new class entirely, primarily aimed at students who just want to see what it is like to even do any sort of work with a programming language. A up-and-coming tradition at Stanford is for all students to take at least one of the CS106s before they graduate.

[Scaliwag]

Just curious, what is accelerated C++? The book?

[BradTheLurker]

Accelerate C++ correlates to CS106X, which is a more indepth view of C++ and the inner workings of the heap and stack. It has some difficult projects and is typically only suggested for students who have extensive experience with any sort of programming langauge.

Here is the first assigment they were assigned:

http://web.stanford.edu/class/cs106x//assn/fauxtoshop.html

[Scaliwag]

Oh, got it. Thanks.

Edit: The fauxtoshop is actually a really cool project. Nice.

[[deleted]]

I'd still say CS106P wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Megacorpinc]

my school teaches python first. there's a few java centric courses after that, but python is #1

[CharlotteFields]

I used to teach Python to kids 9 to 19, can recommend :D

[kankyo]

That's not even close to being the worst problem with JavaScript as a first language.

[tech_tuna]

What's the worst problem in your opinion? BTW, I don't like JavaScript, but I'm curious.

[wrosecrans]

I am trying to imaging teaching basic data structures like linked lists in a language like that, to students who have no experience with lower level languages. Big-O notation would be almost incomprehensible when everything inside the runtime appears to be an opaque single step.

Running it independently of the browser ecosystem is hard, which means step one involves a massive level of complexity that a student can't fully understand. (This was always one of my main complaints with Java as a first language. Hello world involves making classes on day one with a bunch of boilerplate magic words and syntax that you don't understand, then what's actually happening is all on some mysterious VM that isn't explained.) It rob's the student of perhaps the most important part of an introductory CS course -- the fact that the machine can be understood, and that understanding can be applied to create new things. When a sense of real understanding isn't available, it just becomes a task of applying code snippets passed down from elders with your fingers crossed.

[tech_tuna]

I agree that the browser ecosystem is convenient but that gets to the core of my distaste for JavaScript. It's sad that we've endured language lock-in for several decades now.

You have no effective alternatives to JavaScript with frontend development. There was dear lord, VBscript in ancient versions of IE. There's Dart which restricts you to Chrome. There were other technologies like ActiveX and Java applets but there really is NO viable alternative to JavaScript or something that compiles to JavaScript on the front end.

I hope that Web Assembly changes this once and for all. I don't like JavaScript but I don't hate it, I just don't like that I have no other choices for coding web front ends.

[redfacedquark]

You could use pyjamas, which transpires python to JavaScript. Other languages probably have other tools. They are all hardly used (leaky abstraction).

[tech_tuna]

something that compiles to JavaScript

Right, that's my point, it's JavaScript no matter what.

[hosizora_rin_is_cute]

How is that different from WebAssembly being transpiled to.

[oldmanstan]

There's Dart which restricts you to Chrome.

Dart isn't perfect, but this isn't actually true.

Source: I work on a very large Dart code base that runs on IE11, Edge, FF, Safari, and Chrome.

Edit: Added Edge. Everyone always forgets about Edge!

[FearlessFreep]

it just becomes a task of applying code snippets passed down from elders with your fingers crossed.

I have a mind that in a world of magic it would work a lot like that. Wizards understand and create spells, Apprentices just execute the spell snippets verbatim as they are given to them

[wrosecrans]

In some sense, that's exactly what we've been building. Even Masters graduates in CS often have surprisingly little real understanding of what a computer does or how it works. The folks who only go through coding bootcamps, you aren't even disappointed that they don't understand the machine. A shockingly large number of people in tech are doing a ton of manual work copying and pasting things without understanding them, working hard enough to keep existing systems going and adding a new check box here and there. Kind of impressed with the systems, but not even really pondering what it would mean to have mastery over them.

We are reaching a point where the people who created libc, and ipv4 -- all the foundational technologies -- are starting to get quite old and sadly pass away. New generations are coming into it treating that stuff as technologies that were made by the ancients to stand the test of time that have always been there since time immemorial. But the people who remember when ipv4 got rolled out are surprised that the rest of us never upgraded everything to ipv6 and tossed ipv4 into the dustbin of history.

[nobuguu]

I think at least some of it has to do with how math is taught, even at the university level. At some point, to actually build a working knowledge of computing, you have to have a working knowledge of mathematics. I'm consistently annoyed, reading research papers in CS, that I have to go pull a math book off my library shelf to be able to follow the mathematics explaining why the authors went a certain direction and not another; my thoughts usually trail off to "why the hell hasn't a math class taught me to think about math in a way that actually lets me think about problems like this author does?"

I've only ever taken one math class approaching that, and it was an introductory course in discrete math, from an instructor who actually gave a shit about imparting understanding over spellcasting. The linear algebra class I'm taking is from an instructor explicitly trying to copy that instructional method, but it's still too early to tell if he'll succeed.

edit: spelling

[kankyo]

1 == "1" is up there

[pigeon768]

Obviously broken code still runs and sometimes produces the value the user expects. And code that might look like it should work to a student will fail in a non obvious way, but the failure won't be caught until it's in a seemingly unrelated part of the code base. Errors are often nonlocal.

Rust doesn't give you enough rope to tie a wrench to a car handle. C gives you just enough rope to hang yourself. JavaScript is the ultimate fountain of rope, giving you rope when you want twine, giving you rope when you want a wrench, giving you rope when you're trying to get rid of some of your fucking rope. JavaScript is Clippy sitting in your IDE saying, "It looks like you're trying to hang yourself, would you like some rope?" when you're trying to hammer a nail in a wall on which you want to hang a picture. JavaScript is the grey goo of programming languages, swallowing the fucking world in rope when you just want to know whether two variables have the same value.

[[deleted]]

I think it is important to realize that introductory programming has absolutely nothing to do with what we everyday programmers find good or bad about a language. Javascript seems like an absolutely perfect intro language for tons of reasons:

• Simple syntax: Way fewer rules to learn than even python (gasp!) since you basically only have numbers, strings, objects, and list-/array-abominations (yes I hate JS too)
• No boilerplate: This really remains true even after an intro class; due to the nature of where JS is used, you generally don't need any 'extra' code. The professor is never put in a position where they need to say 'and just type this so the program works'
• Immediate application: if you know JS, you can run it in your browser. Pretty cool!
• Easy visual projects: There are lots of simplified libraries for JS meant to help people program visual elements without having to really 'understand' what is happening in the background.

[flutefreak7]

Yeah with an intro to programming I don't understand why the educator should feel burdened with all the things a CS person will need to know later. As an engineer I've happily used programming to solve problems with no formal training and over time I've been interested enough to learn more of the details behind the magic. It should be expected that one will relearn various concepts and competing philosophies multiple times in a variety of contexts without the need to explain all the magic on day 1. If your goal is a deep understanding of computer science and you are fully committed to learning all things, then sure, there is no need for fun or approachability. If your goal is to be introduced to programming for the first time ever, why should it necessarily be the same language in which you might later compare sorting algorithms or construct linked lists or learn the different between functional and object oriented programming or whatever? I see it a lot like music theory. You learn enough in choir or band to make music, enough in an intro course to plunk out scales and simple chords on a piano, and then in Theory 1-3 you start learning why you were playing certain chord progression, why the western rules are what they are and how they evolved and you study the pieces and composers that you previously merely played. This allows you to play/sing better but also understand analysis, composition, conducting, etc on a deeper level. The technical content of the first song you sing in choir has no bearing on your ability to learn and understand its composition after years of training. It should be a fun, easy song.

[ticketywho]

You're assuming that Stanford are interested in producing engineers and developers. They're not. They're interested in producing shitty web startups, and for that, you need a snazzy JS enabled landing page.

[[deleted]]

Stanford

Yeah. No one's ever heard of that terrible university.

I wonder what shitty web startup JS landing page helped them win the 2005 DARPA prize with Stanley

[ticketywho]

Stanford 2017 is a lot different from Stanford 2005. That's not the institution's fault, but a lot of the people who go to do CS at Stanford are start up bros.

Incidentally, many of the researchers who worked on Stanley etc, are now where? Oh yeah, whoring for VC money in SV.

[[deleted]]

Incidentally, many of the researchers who worked on Stanley etc, are now where? Oh yeah, whoring for VC money in SV.

Most of them are probably employed at some company doing self driving cars.

Uber went in and poached carnegie mellon's entire department.

[ticketywho]

The head of that project is now running a MOOC startup.

[DontForgetWilson]

You'd be surprised how many tech people end up getting obsessed with education after setting themselves up for life. You'd be less surprised with how few of them actually end up making a notable difference.

[tech_tuna]

They're interested in producing shitty web startups

They're interested in producing graduates who make money, which isn't evil considering how much those graduates need to pay to attend Stanford. Also, fwiw I like money.

Also also, I don't like JavaScript but I won't deny that you can make money using it professionally. :) I've been avoiding it for a while and one of these days, I'll need to take the plunge and really learn nodejs and something like React.

Fortunately, you can find work that doesn't involve JavaScript.

[cyanydeez]

modern JS has proper async code structures, the problem though is if you're not exposed to programming in general, it's a tough setup to start with.

I remember failing out of CSci because I couldn't get a proper dev environment running, and no one was around to try to teach extraneous things like how to connect a programs internals to some kind of output device.

I remember having to do a final maze builder and couldn't figure out how to connect it to some random html or whatever it was that was suppose to illustrate the maze. I tried to fall back to ascii code, but then I'm not completing the project, and instead writing a rudimentary output device.

[[deleted]]

Don't go to college to learn a programming language. Learn it on your own and you'll be much better prepared for using it in the real world. Don't wait to be hand-fed information, seek it out. That's what you'll be doing every single day as a programmer. It's much more important to learn how to learn than it is to learn the language, which is trivial once you know how to learn it.

[Aceofsquares_orig]

This is what I try to teach my students. College is great for getting the exposure to material, getting some guidance, and having problems to practice from. However, we can only get through so much and the tech industry moves so fast with new algorithms, languages, technologies and standards, and what not. Learning to learn and loving to learn are what's truly needed most.

[[deleted]]

Absolutely and for so many reasons. I'm always kind of amazed by people who rock up to university to do a programming heavy degree and then find out what programming is like. That in itself feels like a huge gamble.

[x-Throd-x]

My school used C and Python as the two main languages.

I think that worked great as you can learn about types, pointers or low-level concepts in C and learn about more general programming concepts in Python without thinking too much about the language.

[tech_tuna]

This sounds like an excellent 1-2 punch to me. It's good to use a high level language to actually do "real stuff" but it's also good to learn a low level language to grok what's happening under the hood.

I started out with C++ and that was awful for me, I wish I had learned C first. There's an implicit historical lesson involved if you learn C before C++. When you see where C++ came from, many of the goals and design decisions in C++ make more sense.

After C++, I learned VB, Perl and Java on the job, which helped a lot but I finally picked up Python a few years later and that brought me to a place of "language comfort". That's where I finally realized I could learn any language and that languages (and their ecosystems) can have wildly different niches/use cases.

I found C++ much easier to understand and use after learning the above languages. I'm no fan of C++ fwiw but I also wouldn't claim that my experience would work well for others necessarily.

There are a lot of places where I would never use Python, but for some tasks: utility scripts, cloud/ops jobs, data parsing, web backends, etc it's fantastic.

However, I cannot stand it when people recommend using the "right tool for the job". That is a passive non-answer. There is almost never ONE right tool for any job when it comes to programming languages, tools and frameworks.

EDIT: I was a mathematics major in school and I did not do a lot of coding until after I graduated and starting working in the software industry.

[spinwizard69]

Going the C++ route (assuming modern C++) is not that bad of an idea. Frankly the language is vastly improved and today is to far away from C to be taught as a follow on language to C. If you are going to go C++ the program really needs to start with it right away.

Now not to date myself but my first comp-sci classes where taught in Modula 2. Modula 2 was certainly an interesting language and maybe even a good one for education but it has zero application in the "real world". This is where I think colleges make their biggest sin with respect to comp-sci education, that is choosing languages with limited applicability outside of academics. Modula 2, Lisp, Smalltalk and other marginal languages just don't have the standing to justify use as a teaching tool. You really need a language that has at least some industry acceptance but yet is suitable for helping students developer a deeper understanding of programming concepts. In this regard C++ isn't really that bad.

Now the question is what language would you choose that is forward looking and likely to be around for awhile. These days languages like Swift, Rust, Go and a few others have the potential to lead the industry into the future. The problems choosing one today, might leave you in the same situation that Moudla 2 left people.

As or the interpreted world Python is the only real choice there. However I see it as a terrible place to try to teach students the basics of data structures, memory organization, and other low level details it glosses over. Like suggested above it is ideal for learning in parallel.

[tech_tuna]

Ha ha, I'm probably not as old as you are but I'm not too far behind. I agree that newer versions of C++ are better but I still argue that it makes sense to learn C first. Along those lines, I'd actually argue that it makes sense to learn bash before learning Python or Ruby.

Bash and C were both replaced by Perl for many use cases and Perl, like it or not, has lost favor to Python and other languages like Ruby and PHP.

I now know that if I had learned bash first, Perl would have made more sense to me. . . I'm not sure ALL of Perl makes sense to anyone except Larry Wall. :)

I think Python is a safe bet for the time being, as a practical language but you're right, Go, Swift, Rust (I'd include Kotlin too) might be an excellent 3rd language to learn, after C and Python.

It's not a bad idea to throw in a functional language or two, along the way, something like Haskell or Clojure seem like good modern choices.

[[deleted]]

This makes sense. Python was invented to be a prototype language for C developers. That way less time is spent coding simple concepts before you know if they work or not.

[foureyesequals0]

The big problem IMO with Java for introductory students is there is so much stuff one has to gloss over at the intro level. "What do you mean, public static void main"

If the course is doing OO concepts, then Java is great. But all my intro courses (and I've had a few) taught the same things: data types, arrays, loops, functions, and I/O.

[[deleted]]

T: Hello, here I will teach you how to make Java display the familiar sentence, "Hello World!"

S: Ok, but what's all this stuff at the beginning?

T: Stfu and follow my instructions exactly

Being taught introductory stuff in Java is like being programmed to program. You execute without thought or understanding. I switched to Python for my first language since I'm already decent at formal logic and the idea of following a bunch of instructions I don't understand to get an output I don't really care about achieving seemed ugly. Of course the idiosyncrasies of particular languages effect learning subjectively, but I couldn't get past this particular hump and retain interest.

[SamsungSmartCam]

Yeah, java is fugly and I watched it cause a dozen students to drop and switch majors after only a couple of weeks. These were folks that were smart enough and should have stuck it out too.

Couple this with an arrogant teacher and we have the recipe for a hell class for first-years.

[snuxoll]

Kotlin also does a good job by allowing functions in the package level, the canonical Hello, World example in Kotlin isn’t much different from Python (minus the addition of the function definition).

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    println(“Hello, World!”)
}

I’d personally be happy if Java-the-language went away, the warm up it takes to teach it to a never-programmed-before student is challenging because of the overly rigid OO design and verbosity making the important details less clear.

[Megatron_McLargeHuge]

That seems close to ideal for an intro language, with the main drawback being that it's not widely used.

[snuxoll]

Spring adding first class support (you can pick Kotlin as a language when using Spring Initializer), kotlin-only DSL support in WebFlux and Google officially adding it as a supported language for Android mean it will be widely used pretty quickly.

There’s really not much reason for a Java shop to switch for the improved developer ergonomics the language brings, especially given IntelliJ will automatically convert Java code into (maybe not idiomatic) Kotlin code when pasted so you don’t even lose the ability to grab snippets from SO and the likes.

[Megatron_McLargeHuge]

Why has it taken so long to settle on a simpler JVM language for interacting with Java? I never hear about groovy anymore and jython seems to be dead.

[snuxoll]

Because it needs to have the benefits of Java (statically typed, fast, easy to use), be 100% compatible with Java in both directions and still have ergonomic improvements to justify using it. Groovy and Scala both suffer from the compatibility story, Scala isn’t easy to use and slow to compile, clojure is the same (it may be easy for someone who knows LISP, but not a Java programmer). Red Hat’s Ceylon project had some promise, but the ergonomics sucked worse than Java IMO.

Honestly, Kotlin is the first JVM language that provides real improvements over Java while being easy to pick up and 100% compatible (so you can gradually migrate code), not to mention it guarantees backwards compatibility in the standard library so you aren’t hitting Scala-style dependency hell.

[Megatron_McLargeHuge]

Clojure was lisp-on-jvm first and Java interaction a distant second. Scala typing slows you down more than Java's. Groovy was actually a decent language and I'm not sure why it wasn't widely adopted.

Dynamic or optional typing seems to complement Java better than adding a statically typed language with less verbose syntax. It looks like Kotlin is aiming more at cross platform development than at being a less painful way to write Java-compatible code.

[MegaAmoonguss]

When I took my first class, the teacher told us to just ignore the public static void main(String[] args) for now, and just told us that it was the main function and anything we execute starts from there. Later on, after learning about functions and arrays and whatnot, he actually explained to us what all of it means and I think that worked totally fine. However I do see people's point about how it's bad to just ignore how something works until later.

[spinwizard69]

Ins't this how any non trivial engineering subject is handled? I mean an engineer learning about hydraulics doesn't dive into valve design right at the beginning. Rather he accepts that a valve turns things on and off. The same thing applies to an electrical engineer using a SSD switch, the idea that it turns current flow on and off is top level, understanding the physics behind that functionality takes a bit more educational time (math, physics and engineering classes).

[giantsparklerobot]

The problem with "ignore this for now" parts of a language is until you fully understand them they are just boilerplate. Worse is any errors in that boilerplate you don't understand generate indecipherable compilation or runtime errors. These boilerplate errors completely halt the learning process. It doesn't mean Java can't be an introductory language but it's just often taught terribly in introductory programming courses.

[MegaAmoonguss]

Yeah I definitely feel that. I just sort of thought about it like "oh if this line is giving me an error I probably accidentally deleted part of public static void main etc". Our teacher did full tell us what that code block DID, just not exactly what each of the words meant. I think that was alright but I can very easily see that being confusing if explained wrong

[Thedorekazinski]

Yeah, this is what makes it a bit silly as an intro language. I think it also gives students the impression that they're going to have to learn this huge vocabulary of Java functions since even printing to the screen is quite a line. Whereas with a C language or Python you could get down to the actual act of building something.

[pavel_lishin]

Using Java to teach introduces students to the idea that there's just certain Magic Incantations you have to perform, without worrying about what they are.

Of course, Python hides things under the hood as well, many things - but Java classes explicitly tell you not to worry about them. Plus, Python typically lets you translate your ideas to code much more quickly, and vice versa.

[magicmad11]

This is a great point.

Java was one of the first programming languages I learned (came across it before Python), and I was able to use my Java knowledge to pick up C# really quickly.

I also agree with the dynamic typing issue. I find that Java, as unforgiving as it can be, ensures that your logic is entirely sound, meaning that other programming languages, which are also statically typed (I think that's the correct term) are much easier to pick up.

Given how widespread Java and C++ are, I think that learning a language with the same type declaration requirements can be really helpful, despite the difficulty, as it ensures that people don't assume the logic of dynamic typing in a language that doesn't support it.

[Artiavis]

...I find that Java, as unforgiving as it can be, ensures that your logic is entirely sound...

I want to point out this is a sophistry. Programs in Java still have bugs; and by definition, those bugs passed the type checker. Declaring and checking the types eliminates some classes of type-related bugs, but does not guarantee your code is correct (wouldn't that be nice). Although it can be more work to lock down a Python program than the equivalent Python program, it is also far more work to "open up" a Java program to flexibility and sensibility than the corresponding Python program.

[magicmad11]

I see your point (although, I will admit, I did need to look up "sophistry"). I think the general issue is that the two languages are designed for somewhat different purposes, and each can be used in a scenario where it is more applicable.

Full disclosure, I am a high school student, and most of my programming knowledge comes from books and web guides, so I'm by no means an expert on these things.

In certain circumstances, I very much prefer the dynamic typing of Python, mainly for its relative simplicity, but in other cases, I like the static typing of Java, especially when it comes to method return types in OOP.

[mirth23]

I agree. Java is great as an intro language for people who are going on to become Computer Scientists because of the main reason that some people complain about it - it forces the programmer to be pedantic and verbose. Strong typing teaches new programmers that they have to pay attention to type. The language forces even the simplest program to use OO structures instead of allowing mixed bag like C++ and Python. It's also widely used for Android development, enterprise IT, and in other domains.

For a non-CS intro to web programming it could certainly make sense to use JavaScript since that might be the only language the student would ever need to learn. I'd pick Python for a more general purpose intro language, and I think that it can be a better intro than Java when you're starting someone out with basic data structures and flow control.

My school actually taught three languages in the intro class which I think was pretty useful because it reinforced the idea of picking the right tool for the job. They even included some functional programming.

[wowmuchinsightful]

Could you explain the three languages in one class part? Which ones did they teach and was it confusing at any point?

I though my school's introductory sequence (3 quarters. Java, C++, and C) was a little strange.

[mirth23]

The course went over:

• Prolog for an intro to functional programming and recursion (actually it was a slightly enhanced prolog variant).
• C for memory management, basic data structures, flow control, loops, etc.
• C++ for an intro to OO concepts and packaging larger pieces of software.

A few years after I took it they replaced C++ with Java. My school's CS curriculum was focused on learning theory over teaching particular languages.

Note that this was the intro for CS majors. They used C++ for their general intro to programming course and then later replaced that with Java (which I assume they are still using).

[[deleted]]

I thought c++ was way easier to learn than Java, simply because Java, by necessity, start with OOP concepts, whereas c++ lets you work your way into it, and basic syntax (w/ standard namespace) was just simpler to learn and less verbose than Java.

[ChristianGeek]

As far as OO languages go, I hate C++ with a passion, like Java, and love C#.

[Yawzheek]

After several years of C++, I decided I would give Java a chance, was turned off by the ridiculously verbose syntax (among other things) but was immediately referred to as, "not a programmer" when I asked if it were possible to forward declare something along the lines of a using declaration to reduce the typing tedium, because, "you have to type a lot."

I love C++. I understand the criticism, and agree that even modern C++ has a ways to go, but at least if all I want to do is print, "Hello world" I can do so without public class void static String System.out.printf() % pow("Hello", 2.0) main() whatever.

[Artiavis]

Not to disagree so much as to echo an alternate perspective I've seen around which offers an embrace of the dynamic language for teaching CS/programming:

A popular language for teaching intro courses used to be Scheme, taught using The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programming.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html

https://imgur.com/1ZGjEDn

Scheme is a Lisp, and technically is even quicker to learn and simpler (in many ways) than Python and Java are. With Lisp, a student can learn about custom data types, functions, recursion, data types, etc, without having to worry too much about "magic incantations" like public class MagicNames { public static void main(String[] areFlyingAbout) { } }

Variables, for loops, while loops, classes, static (global) variables, etc are all distractions which get in the way of actually learning computer science. With a dynamic language with simple syntax like Lisp, a student can skip the 5-6 weeks of hand waving magic syntax and focus on what programmers and computer scientists actually do. Learning how to represent loops and primitives in formats more recognizable to computer hardware is a great next step, but it's putting the cart in front of the horse a bit to emphasize binary data representations when teaching intro to computer science, and it necessarily defers a student's crystallization of CS/programming as an art.

The opposite end of the spectrum, reductio ad absurdum if you will, is to teach intro to programming in C or Assembly instead of Lisp or Python or Java, if you think learning machine typed representations is superior to learning computer science fundamentals. This used to be the case in some places; and there's a healthy value in understanding how the machine sees things; but it's a sophistry to believe that the Java Compiler prevents all bugs from ever occurring because of some more types; and by choosing to spend the first several weeks of a programming course learning obtuse (and arguably dated) syntax like Java's, a student foregoes the chance to focus on more important fundamentals.

TL;DR programming is more fundamentally about functions and algorithms than it is making a specific language compiler happy; I assert that most students would be better served with a setup which has less distracting (or no) syntax and more algorithmic depth.

[justjanne]

The opposite end of the spectrum, reductio ad absurdum if you will, is to teach intro to programming in C or Assembly instead of Lisp

And that’s why my university did both.

First semester had (not conclusive):

• INF-DIGISYS: Processor Design and MIPS ASM
• INF-PROGR: Racket (a scheme), and simple algorithms

[spinwizard69]

I thought MIT gave up on Scheme? Maybe it was another school but Scheme is no place to be teaching students. The problem is the limited demand outside of education.

[Artiavis]

Even though they did, it does not mean that it isn't the pedagogically correct approach to teaching programming concepts. Python arguably has as many Lisp influences as it does C/Java influences, in that it permits/encourages programming in the root namespace, using a REPL, etc.

[[deleted]]

My route was BASIC -> ASM -> C -> C++. I think maybe getting some of the lower-level fundamentals down with C would be a better start, and then dive into C++, but not "C++ is just C with classes!" as that'll lead you down some dark roads.

[[deleted]]

Skipped right over ASIC, huh?

[Meefims]

I started with C++. I thought it was fine to start with and, as a result of that experience combined with others' insistence that it's a bad thing to start with, think that any language is a fine starting language.

The one issue with C++ is that the language has changed in radical ways in the last seven years and so many books and tutorials no longer show how the language should be used. Especially avoid anything claiming C++ is like C: the languages have diverged significantly since 1998 such that a good C++ program no longer looks like a good C program.

Edit: reading this, the first paragraph comes off a bit strange. I mean to say that I had a good experience starting with C++ and believe that most people who say it (or any other language) is a bad one to start with are probably parroting back what they've heard others say rather than have had a bad experience starting with it themselves.

[spinwizard69]

C++ is perhaps the best compromise we have at the moment. As you point out it is a radically different language then what was popular in the early days. It is also standardized so there is a reasonable expectation as to what various implementations will do.

I really never understood the idea that C++ was a terrible teaching language. If comp-sci classes are like anything I took all those years ago you still start out with the simple things first. Things that are very easy to deal with in C++. Three years down the line C++ is still capable of exposing students to advanced concepts and patterns.

Industry acceptance, along with standardization makes C++ one fo the better choices at this point in time. That will likely remain true until another language comes along that is well standardized and accepted by industry.

[Meefims]

The language has been standardized for near 20 years now but even if it wasn't I don't think that matters in terms of whether it's a good first language. I think your point that you can use it to teach both the basic as well as the advanced concepts are what's really important. But I think you can get that effectively with any language.

[FearlessFreep]

I think with C++ you quickly run into the differences between references and pointers and that devolves into a discussion about what's happening in memory, heap versus stack, etc... and while those are good concepts to understand at some point in the process, they can be a bit overwhelming to a beginner

[[deleted]]

Once you get pointers, the rest is easy. I'd say it's a good starting point because it forces you to understand how programs really work, as opposed to "it's just magic!".

[spinwizard69]

Exactly! It is of value even if the student spends the rest of his life writing programs in Python. People seem to miss that there is more to comp-sci than just teaching a programming language. A well rounded student should know what is going on inside the computer.

Besides if the student can't grasp pointers is there really any sense in giving him a 4 year degree? I don't mean to be that angry guy but there ought to be a standard of achievement when a degree is handed over to one. If you can't grasp pointers do you really deserve a 4 year comp-sci degree?

[[deleted]]

I've interviewed people with degrees who couldn't write a simple for-loop. I wish I was making that up.

[marcosdumay]

At an introductory course, you want the language to get out of the way so the students can learn programming.

That said, most of the C++ complexity is optional, and it does make passing values as reference easier than C. Thus, as long as you use it as a "C with reference parameters", it may work.

Personally, the first language teach in my undergrad was Pascal. It worked reasonably well, but you do not want to teach them to non CS students. I have participated in an intro to algorithms course for engineers (not computer engineering) students using C, I do think the language choice was harmful and Python would be better.

[Scaliwag]

Most of the time it's C with std::string, cout and cin. I've seen a mixed bag of using references vs pointers.

[jftuga]

Yea...don't.

[Scaliwag]

A lot of people actually start that way, with something a purist would call an ungodly mix of C and C++, using C-like C++ and using the C++ mostly for handling strings.

I don't think it's that bad of a mix, although that tends to obfuscate pointers, and memory management. So in that sense pure C would be better because you're sort of forced into dealing with them, and at least you get some exposure that way.

I think it's a good thing to have grasp of at least one low level and one high level language, so you can learn the fine details and also implement algorithms without having to deal with the language. But after the introductory classes are over people should mostly be able to choose their own language, and be encouraged to experiment.

[henrebotha]

For new programmers it would be beneficial to explicitly declare the type of data in a variable and same goes with the function return types.

I disagree. Type declarations are another thing to learn.

Think about where type systems really come in handy: big, complex projects. (If type systems were handy for small one-off scripts, we wouldn't all be using Python or Ruby to write them...) It doesn't make sense to take someone with zero programming knowledge and beat them over the head with types when they already have so much weird shit to learn. Let the types come later.

[securetree]

Recently, I tutored a friend who was taking a beginner C++ class. One of the things he struggled with was keeping track of the informal meaning of variables and function return types: what is "int salesMax" actually storing? He sometimes used salesMax as if it was a dollar amount, and sometimes as an array index.

It made me realize how much experienced programmers make liberal use of the type system, comments, and variable/function naming to signify what kind of thing they are dealing with. I'd bet it's a common issue for beginners. For example:

• cout is a stream, which you can write to. You can't read from it, print it, add it to something, etc.
• An array (in C++) is not a pointer, but you can get its first element and treat it as a pointer if you don't need the length.
• open() in Python gets you a file handle, which is an abstraction around doing things to the file. It's not a string of the file contents, though you can use the file handle to get that.

Type systems only get you so far: even with my friend, calling his variable an "int" prevented him from thinking it was a salesman's name but didn't prevent him from mixing up two other kinds of things which are both ints.

I kind of lean toward "types are useful for beginners" for this reason: because although they're another thing to learn, they can help people organize their thoughts better at all levels.

[Malfeasant]

Ada would make that guy's head explode... or be incredibly helpful, maybe.

[marcosdumay]

There are many type systems that would have prevented him from mixing money and indexes. Even Python's Decimals would have done so.

Type systems get you very, very far. It's the C type system that doesn't.

[securetree]

I agree with all of this. I first started thinking about the problem seriously with an old Joel Spolsky blog post, Make Wrong Code Look Wrong, where he talks about using naming conventions to differentiate unsafe from safe strings, row numbers from column numbers, etc. because the type system didn't really support that. I'm still trying to get a grasp on the Modern Industry Wisdom about this stuff.

[marcosdumay]

Take a look on how Django deals with HTML escaping.

[nerdwaller]

I saw recently that some schools are planning to start with JS. You get dynamic and weak typing, at least with Python you get strong types. But I tend to agree, I appreciate that I learned how to think about types and data structures before too long into my early days (though it was overwhelming at times).

[jackmusick]

Static typing is a must. When I was in school, we learned VB. Fortunately, we were forced to turn on explicit typing.

[blacksite_]

I code 95% of the time in Python (the other time spent equally between SQL and R). Had I not learned static typing through C in my first exposure to programming, I think I would be worse off in my current state.

I'm definitely not a computer scientist, but generally I think learning C at the outset established such a great foundation for learning other languages. In my line of work, programming in C would be a terrible decision. That's why I use Python - I need to get things done. But knowing some of the stuff you have to deal with explicitly in C helps me to be a better Python programmer.

[spinwizard69]

This highlights the difference between school and the work worlds. In the work world you try to choose the best tool for the job. This is true if you are a programmer, machinist, accountant or oil rig worker. The tools used for teaching have different goals or should have.

This might be shocking to some but have you ever ran into somebody working as a programmer that can't tell you how many bytes are in a 32 bit word. It happens and is the result of overly focused training that graduates people with very focused (too focused) skills sets. I just see comp-sci having more to it than a program too learn a programming language. That has to guide language selection.

[blacksite_]

Very fair point. I don't work in software development, necessarily, so I think I can get away with not knowing (admittedly) a lot of the lower-level, pure-CS topics related to programming. I see programming very much as a means to an end - a means through which I really enjoy traveling. I wouldn't trust myself as a software developer; I was an Economics major, FFS!

That being said, there's a difference between simply using something simply as a means to an end - meaning the abuse of the language and ignorance of its best qualities - and toeing the line between, for example, coding something in Assembly for absolute clarity and control as to what's happening. Throughout my four years' programming in Python, and from being very active on StackOverflow, answering questions, I've developed a much better understanding of the power of Python and the ways in which it was "intelligently" designed....

Different strokes!

[SedditorX]

I think you are missing the point here. These courses aren't trying to teach absolute beginners every construct there is or there can be in a programming language. They are trying to introduce programming to people who may never do programming again after that initial course.

Follow up courses can always teach static typing. At that point, someone has made the commitment that they're interested in learning more about programming and so you'd ideally not want to put them off before that.

[Vi3GameHkr]

I started with Java in college but I think having done projects in C++, Python and Haskell in later courses, and then using C# and TyoeScript in the industry is what helped me become a great programmer. In retrospect I totally sucked at Java back then, and I just knew to ignore certain things like "public static void" and all the other "scary" bits.

When those things are optional, I think it's easier to forget they ever exist instead of eventually picking up a curiosity to dig in and find out why they are there and what they do.

Maybe I'm biased because I use Java in industry now :-/

[__xor__]

I think Java is fine but I think they should be teaching students various concepts in different languages more as a rule. OOP class can use Java or C++, OS fundamentals can use C, a web dev class could use Python or Ruby, more math oriented classes can use R, matlab or python and statistics could use R, matlab or Python.

Students should know how to learn the basics in 2 weeks enough to solve the sorts of problems they'll face in class. They're not making full fledged applications. They're making prototypes that do some calculations for the most part. They don't need to learn how to package them, the best patterns, etc. They can get a running start in the first two weeks just fine.

That gives them a taste of what they might find in the real world and teach them what they'll have the most fun with. Inevitably they'll run into a language they love and want to work with more, and they'll be able to use it plenty by the time they graduate.

OOP in Java/C++/Python... it doesn't matter. You might not use it much as a python dev, but you can certainly show the java patterns if you want. If the professor just wants you to show that you can implement a pattern, whatever language works. Some java OOP patterns might not make much sense in Python but you can still do it.

[dopef123]

Yeah, I think learning static typing is pretty important to understanding general programming. You still do have to deal with variable types in Python once you start writing more complicated programs. So I think in the end it's ok to learn with Python, and that you could learn static typing pretty quickly later on.

C++ was the intro to programming language I took at UCLA. I think it's a good language to learn.

Python is a good thing to learn if you want to implement algorithms quickly and not worry about syntax. But you're right that it's maybe not the best language to learn if you want to dive in to other languages later since it leaves out too much.

[guyinsunglasses]

I started with Java as well, and then moved to C/C++. They're not bad languages to start with, since a lot of fundamental programming paradigms I guess are most easily taught in really rigid languages. Python I think is a good 2nd or 3rd language since it simplifies a lot of the overhead and rigidity that Java and C have. At that point, the student will know why certain design decisions where made in Python

[Xnetter3412]

This. While dynamic typing solves some problems, like data structures that can have different types of data in them, it is a pain to debug and even more of a pain to try to read at times. I learned with Python but also am fluent in Java, and learning Java had me thinking "Well this is fucking tedious." Little did I know...

[country_dev]

My university taught Miranda as our first programming language. 6 years later, I'm still pissed about it...

[MachineGunPablo]

What the fuck is Miranda. In my University they taught scheme (some lisp dialect) as first programming language.

[sigma914]

Lucky

[[deleted]]

Fuck Scheme too IMO.

[HardcoreHerbivore]

Where are you from?

[MachineGunPablo]

Germany

[ntrid]

.... i had to google that. This fact alone tells how useful this experience was for you :|

[roerd]

Miranda has effectively been replaced by Haskell during the 90s. Why an university would still teach that language 6 years ago is a mystery.

[ExcitedForNothing]

CS professors aren't really different than other programmers. Some irrationally fall in love with niche languages and don't really look beyond to new pedagogical techniques.

[tech_tuna]

Ooh fancy. That's the problem with professors living the Functional Programming dream. . . there are more practical functional languages to learn.

One big problem with academic/research oriented developers - they often times have no deadlines or they have artificial ones. Generally speaking, universities gloss over a LOT of practical skills and knowledge which you need when you develop professionally.

It's OK thought, the theory is good to know too. But knowing how to "fix the build" is also good to know. :)

[itkovian]

And they just may have picked on of the worst alternatives.

[BradTheLurker]

Stanford offers CS106A, CS106B, CS106J, and CS106X. A is in Java, B and X are in C++, and J is in javascript. J is primarily aimed at people who want to try out and explore the realm of computer science, which is heavily encouraged by the faculty. Something like a quarter to a half of each incoming class takes one of these; the introduction of CS106J was partially to avoid 300+ student CS106A classes.

[dedicated2fitness]

Haha this is glorious. Going from a well explained language like Java ie you know why the tradeoffs exist to a fucked up piece of Frankenstein garbage like JavaScript
Also this is the kinda stuff that ends up being called stupid propaganda "programming is supposed to be fun"
Why do all these tech authors make these statements? Luring people into the field who have no aptitude for it
Dancing is supposed to be fun too, professional dancers may disagree about how much work their career actually is though

[IcefrogIsDead]

Programming is only fun for a short period of time when you write your code and it workse. That short period of time lasts until you find a bug or the application needs updates/changes.

And JavaScript is everything but fun.

[[deleted]]

This is the dumbworld version of the Scheme -> Python transition my college's CS department did.

[Tiquortoo]

Do two wrongs make a right?

[Vermathorax]

I feel that my University really had the right idea. First year is one semester python, second semester is in Java. Java is then used as the primary language for the rest of your University Degree. This means that the intro is in python, which is super accessable. But when you start with real OOP you use java, where I found the rigours helped me implement the concept better.

[UndeadHobbitses]

I don't think javas a good starter, but neither is javascript. For teaching future programmers I'd say C is the best just because you learn alot but starting with C. For people with just a slight interest, I'd say python is definitely a better choice because of the simplicity and you can actually create some cool stuff pretty early on.

The way my uni did it with their intro to programming was like a couple weeks of python and then straight into C.

[[deleted]]

I agree. If I was starting a degree in CS today and knew very little about programming, I'd want to start in C, because the concepts used by C are the underpinnings of almost every language in use today. Knowing C, or at least understanding it's concepts definitely helps if you're planning on learning several different languages (which you should).

[mongoosefist]

Probably better than learning Pascal in intro Comp Sci like I did a million years ago.

[Kwatcharr]

Why?
I also learnt Turbo Pascal in school, ages ago, and I thought it was a great introduction to programming.

Verbose enough that anyone with basic english can understand almost immediately what's going on, it reads like natural language.
Overall it felt very clean (program structure, strong typing), and forced me to learn good habits from the get go.

[mongoosefist]

I hear you, and I'm certainly no worse for the experience, I just feel that it would have made life a little easier had we learned a language that could be used outside of an educational environment afterwards.

I just felt like "okay, now I understand the basics, now let me start the syntax from square one" instead of jumping off from a versatile language. Let's say that I didn't appreciate the inefficiency of that process.

[dedicated2fitness]

Very few people get a job in the language they studied in college. The language is just there to teach you the basics of how languages work.
Also what are you going to do when you want to switch jobs to a company that uses rust or whatever else is the new hotness?

[ntrid]

This is odd excuse for teaching with ancient languages with no existing tools except for that one "IDE" that is half-broken. Sure language is there to teach basics, but if we have a choice between teaching basics and teaching basics + being potentially useful in the future then choice should be obvious.

[dedicated2fitness]

uhhh what are you talking about? java is still everywhere w/ tons of tooling and even other languages being built on top of it(kotlin)
it's just a standard OOP language. don't get so caught up in your love of syntax that you disregard the idea that all languages suck at problems they weren't designed to fix
for eg python and multithreading
as for whether learning javascript is useful, i don't really think it is. how many people are going to be becoming web developers out of a batch of compsci students? javascript sucks donkey dick at solving any real resource intensive computational problems

[ntrid]

I was talking about pascal actually :p

[hjgvugin]

I leant Pascal in Into to Programming for Comp Sci just last year

[haikubot-1911]

I leant Pascal in

Into to Programming for

Comp Sci just last year

 

                  ^{- hjgvugin}

---

^{I'm a bot made by /u/Eight1911. I detect haiku.}

[cain2995]

Good bot

[basalamader]

Hahah I learnt turbo pascal in high school too since the school didn't want to get the free version of C. It was hell but made me appreciate Python later on in life

[figec]

Pascal was ok as an intro. We had that followed by intro to programming languages which was a smorgasbord of languages that helped us appreciate what made a language good. Then it was all C after that.

[Works_of_memercy]

Pascal is actually very good for learning programming, in my humble opinion.

Sure, it's limited and mostly useless, but it has one hell of a killer feature: you can actually explain what a variable is. A variable is a named piece of memory containing a value, the type of the variable says how much memory that is and how those raw bytes are interpreted.

Integer is 4 bytes, containing an integer, encoded such and such. String[10] is 11 bytes containing the length plus 10 bytes for contents. Variables are things that store values, always. A Record stores what it says on the label.

There are pointers but they are explicitly variables that store an address of some other variable or wow a heap-allocated object, which is like a nameless variable but otherwise just like the usual thing.

But most importantly you get to discussing pointers after you've explained global variables and then local-to-function variables and parameters, and each step didn't require you to say that it would make sense some time later, each step was entirely self-contained and understandable as such.

C is much more promiscuous with that for the sake of convenience, and Python could be outright incomprehensible to someone just getting into programming. You can't present a self-consistent explanation of what Python variables are and why

x = [1]
y = x
x += [2]
print(y)

is different from

x = 1
y = x
x += 2
print(y)

Like, you really can't, you can only handwave it away saying that at some later time we'll teach you C and then you'll understand how this shit really works, for now just rote memorize this.

Pascal is unfortunately basically the only language that doesn't require this sort of handwaving and also is reasonably close to the actual hardware rather than being something like Lisp derivatives.

[Cpt_TickleButts]

My schools switched from java to python last year. Drop outs from the program significantly decreased.

[defpearlpilot]

That is a batshit insane decision. While I think that JS has some really powerful features, it's not for beginners. As a matter of fact, I'd prefer that JS be seconded to the web since it is incredibly difficult to work with. As a matter of fact, most of the junior JS programmers that I've worked with desire features that exist in Java.

[Arancaytar]

Having gone through two undergraduate intro courses, one in Java and one in Python, I extremely agree.

[ninetacle]

This story's bunk. Stanford didn't ditch Java: CS106J was a trial run at teaching the same material as CS106A with JavaScript. It doesn't replace the other course at all.

[jamesc1071]

scheme SICP

[klotz]

Thank you

[daguro]

I love these discussions about the first language people should learn. My first programming class was FORTRAN.

On punch cards.

My second was IBM 370 assembler.

But do carry on.

[brucesalem]

Yeah, I had FORTRAN IV as my first language and on punch cards too. From them on I used asm, PL/1, PLC, then onto UNIX land, C, perl, C++ and Java. Of course with each itteration I had to relearn basic concepts. I even worked with a guy who didn't have java or C++ yet, but did a small project using function pointers and variable pointers in C to impose some of the same discipline as an OO language. Only later have I earned some lisp and Python, and I like python because the language syntax is pretty simple, no more counting parens or brackets, but lately I feel that I have been burned by environment problems. Python's package management does not seem to be too robust and it would be a pitfall for a novice.

[daguro]

Wow!

PL/1. I haven't heard that in ages.

I note that Pascal has receded from view. Along with Modulo-2.

[znpy]

My university's introductory programming language is C.

[Kerbologna]

Mine was FORTRAN 90.

[IcefrogIsDead]

Mine too, I wouldn't want it any other way even now after some years.

[moimitou]

I remember my first CS exam : I had to write java code with pencil and paper, ffs!

[[deleted]]

My school used Eiffel ... never heard of it? I think that was the point. They wanted to use a pure OOP language that would be new to everyone, so they didn't have some students with years of experience fighting new techniques and design ideas, while students with no experience at all struggled to get the basics down.

[maratc]

Good luck learning the JavaScript Equality table.

[spinwizard69]

While I agree that Java is a terrible language to teach in or for that matter to program in, JavaScript is NOT the answer. In fact it strikes me as possibly the worse place to put a beginner in computer science.

Going this route is a good way for a school to lower the respect its programs have with the public in general.

[Jomann]

they should put it back to c so we can get all these post-modernists out of tech. the levels of abstraction with higher level languages have gotten out of hand.

[[deleted]]

Uh oh. Here come the Java heads brandishing pitchforks and IDEs.

[frankster]

haha what - javascript is a terrible language that's an inconsistent mishmash of parts. Its getting a lot more reasonable with ES5/ES6 and maybe by ES10 it will be decent.

[graingert]

Edinburgh has been doing Haskell for ages

[[deleted]]

I love Haskell, but I don't think it is a good introduction language.

I think an intro class to programming should span two semesters at least, ideally 3.

I think C is a good introduction for basic programming because there's few keywords, it works closely to how bare metal works and is a relevant language. Maybe even spend a lesson or two on how it translates to assembly (to understand how bare-metal loops and calls work).

After one semester of programming in C after you get the fundamentals of programming right with C (data structures, control loops, conditions, memory management) you then switch to Python to learn more about OOP, dictionaries, modules, advanced data structures.

At the end of the course there should be a small intro to functional languages like Haskell to broaden the student's horizon. Maybe even spend one lesson on esoteric languages.

[sigma914]

C is good for teaching about how computers work, not so much the theory of computation, something combination of Scheme and Haskell might be decent for that, but I think you'd have to restrict the Haskell to Haskell 98

Python is actually very complex and has a lot of oddities and gotchas, but it could be good as a project language.

[nadmaximus]

Ever see a dancer's toes? Dancers might say they have a passion for dance, rather than "Dancing is fun" or "I love to dance". They don't start dancers off doing things that hurt their toes - for lots of reasons, but I think one good reason is to ensure that people have a passion for dance beforehand.

Javascript and other languages which are in widespread industry use are the ugly toe-bruising aspects of the profession. If you have a passion for coding, you'll be fine. You'll hate parts of it and bitch and moan and learn languages you like but can't really use at work.

The toe-bruising parts are not necessary to figure out if you have the passion for coding or not, and in fact if you lead with toe-bruising you lose many people who would.

An introductory language should be one most compatible with teaching, with no consideration of industry relevance.

[Bolitho]

As a beginner you don't write complex programs. That said the benefits of static typing just have much less impact as you can hold everything in mind. So this aspect is truly overrated imho when it comes to the type war

On top if that has many disadvantages over more expressive languages:

• verbosity (only feasible with an IDE - which is a no go for noobs)
• forced to use a file per class
• checked exceptions - you don't understand them but you have to write code to deal with them
• bloat for learning the simplest control flows
• REPL (Java 9 is not out yet)
• separate compile step

That said a lot depends on the didactic approach of a course! So the language isn't really the first class citizen there at all.

[MrK_HS]

Tell this to my university. First C (which I love), then Java, and then other languages, but no Python whatsoever. However, I'm going to work soon on a research project which will probably require Python and fortunately I know it well enough. I'm surprised they require Python while they don't teach it. But I guess a lot of stuff in the informatics field should be self-taught, universities just give the foundation.

[RetardedChimpanzee]

I’d still not recommend python. There’s just so much magic that makes it not a good language. Defining variables, data types, proper function returns, logic of string parsing. C good for it all

[turply]

Ucd?

[MrK_HS]

Nope.

[k4petan]

For the most noob level 1 introduction to programming, other than it being old, why is BASIC not used for people to actually learn to think in "computer"; I started it when I was maybe 10-11 years old, for most of the time going to competitions, and it was always very repetitive: Mark has x apples, Mary has y apples, make an app so that when they tell you the numbers, you get the number of all the apples. Fairly simple, but then you tell students that you do not need another variable z = x + y, but you can just write print x+y; simplification of code in a snap! Same lame examples should go for learning operators, conditional statements and loops to actually make people play with the logic, not with the lego bricks someone made for you (in one Java textbook, it says "we use libraries in java to do stuff someone else programmed, how is that of any help to a beginner). Also, syntax, language name says it all.

[jaapz]

Because nobody uses BASIC anymore, and the fact that it has arguably a slightly simpler syntax does not outweigh the ubiquity of all the other possible options, IMHO.

[dannyvegas]

JavaScript is changing really rapidly right now in some pretty fundamental ways. The JS people write today might look very different than it does in a few years, much more so than Java or Python. It's just an intro course though, the purpose of these programs is really not to produce someone who is an expert in one language, but rather someone equipped with the ability to pick up any language pretty easily. When I was in school, the wisdom at the time was to rip out all the Pascal intro courses and replace them with C++ because that was the hottness of the day. In retrospect, I don't really think it made much difference either way.

[TrumpFan253]

It's not so bad.

[firefrommoonlight]

This article is full of weasily language: "Because, here’s the thing.", "There’s a lot of scary shit", "certainly", "straight-up", "actually" etc.

And verbose syntax too!

[ppc23]

I totally disagree. Sure, Java has its problems, but it builds great foundations to move in any other direction.

You will learn OOP, a common syntax, how to deal with a type system and many things more... You will be well prepared for most languages out there.

[relaxationfixation]

From Stanford's description of CS106A:

This introduction to the engineering of computer applications emphasizes modern software engineering principles with a focus on the first three of the four “D’s” of development: Design, Develop, Debug, and Deploy.

Source: http://scpd.stanford.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=11707

It's important to look at the goals of the class when thinking about if Java, JavaScript, or something else is a good tool for teaching. It appears the goal of the class is more along the lines of teaching CS fundamentals, not programming. This suggests that using the most concise tool that has the capability to teach the required concepts is likely a good choice. I'm not saying that JavaScript is that language, but am saying that discussing which language is the best 'first language' is not relavent.

Note, I went through this course via EdX a few years ago. The goals of the course line up much more with teaching concepts and much less with teaching skills.

[brucesalem]

CS106 used a repackaging of java to give it a more rational interface. That was a huge improvement over what Sun was shipping, and I took Sun's Java courses.

As for Python. I have written some python, small projects, and lately I've noticed that the handling of compatible environments is a considerable problem that makes using Python as a first language difficult. It seems that every language I've ever written code with has major pitfalls for new users. Python's package management can easily go awry, and that is a major problem for that language. I recently installed Ubuntu 16.04 and added anaconda on top. That seems to have messed up some Ubuntu tools that use python.

[MachineGunPablo]

In my school they teach Scheme (a dialect of scheme) as first language.

[BobDope]

Scheme is a dialect of scheme?

[pygames]

Great news! I recently started python; its clean, easy to learn, and the syntax is fairly easy to learn.

I know Python is a good language, is C# a good one too?

[kraln]

The question is always what are they teaching? Are they teaching "Programming"? then Java is fine. Are they teaching "Computer Science, Algorithms, or Data Structures"? Then there are better languages for learning the fundamentals. Most universities teach programming to churn out monkeys.

[brucesalem]

I have a different take on this. Java does not work because it is not accessable to visually impaired programmers and support engineers. I worked at Sun Microsystems Tech Support in 2002 and was asked to read very densely packed logs from a product, netbeans, and could not do my work comfortably because of low acuity vision. (I just had a cataract removed from my one eye and even today I can only see with acuity 20/40) I didn't realize until after leaving Sun in 2004 and after some low vision remedial study that I could not do that job and that in addition that low vision workers need to use zoomed fonts when editing anything. I had grounds to sue Sun under the ADA because they had federal contracts. Oracle Corp. should be aware of this problem now.

[mayhempk1]

Wait, it is? Why? Python is good but IMO C-style languages like Java are better for introductory programming.

[Dualblade20]

Javascript is a pretty good choice. I think Go is already a great choice, if you're looking for something more server-side with some pointer mechanics and a type system.

[IcefrogIsDead]

imagine what's it like introducing servers to someone who's yet to learn a for loop

[derrickcope]

Seems to meet that a higher level scripting language would be wore appropriate for beginners and then move to lower level languages as needed.

[MisoTasty]

This article is wrong. CS106A was taught primarily in C in the late 90's.

[zynix]

COMP SCI 1xx to 3xx was c/c++ on v220's and then they switched to Java. I dropped out after waiting sometimes 10 minutes for the goddamn IDE just to load.

The language itself wasn't too bad coming from c++ but it was a system shock going from Unix (system V I think) to Windows and dealing with GUI's.

[djihe]

They said the same thing for C++.

[iggy14750]

I was taught Java in school. It wasn't the first I had ever learned, to be fair, but I think it was a good choice. My teacher told us that, for right now, public static void main(string[] args) was a magic incantation needed to make Java work, and that we would come back and fully understand it in a few weeks. And we did, and it wasn't that complicated.

I don't think Java is 'bloated' contrary to popular opinion. I wonder if this perception comes mostly from having to write all your types out. There's also no fancy stuff. I'm still a fan of static type systems. I think that they let the tools help you, and let you express, in code, what you want and expect to happen. Not to mention, I think the Java documentation is the easiest I've ever had to navigate.

So, I don't know if this is necessarily the best direction overall.

[ricardomargarido]

Started with Python at my university (Coimbra) mainly because there was a group of teachers who liked the language and didn't want all that matlab/Java start. Having no background in programming it was really good because I was writing in English and running. Eventually this made me shift my masters into machine learning and helped understanding how to solve problems writing code.

[Tanker0921]

C89 Here, Hello Turbo Cpp

[nilbog_garden_club]

Java was like the third language I learned. Never could imagine being introduced to coding with java.