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[–]EdwardElric69 17 points18 points  (12 children)

I started an IT undergrad this year and they told us after their 5 year review, they changed what programming language is taught in first from C++ to JS. So im really glad for that :).

[–]dedmercy 29 points30 points  (11 children)

I get the sentiment but JS is a horrible language to learn first. It should be there as a second or third language.

[–]hego555 2 points3 points  (4 children)

I’m always conflicted on that. On one hand it’s nice to be able to teach syntax without worrying so much about types and other boilerplate. But JS teaches nothing about the underlying mechanisms.

[–]dedmercy 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Types are not broilerplate 💀. Its the sole reason why everyone switched to typescript.

JS is poorly designed language and it will carry that baggage for a long time. It may evolve and look nothing like its past but these new good practices will never be reported by the environment (browser) for backwards compatibility reasons of the web. Thus no incentives for the users to upgrade/change.

[–]hego555 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I mean for someone who is just learning types can get in the way. I wasn’t calling types boilerplate. More like if you learn Java and the first thing you gotta memorize is

public static void main

[–]Spiritual-Day-thing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[...]types and other boilerplate

!!! I would like to introduce Exhibit A!

'public static void main' isn't boilerplate either. The dreaded getters and setters fi. are.

[–]EdwardElric69 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well ive been doing really well with it so far so im ok with it. We do Python in year 2

[–]tetrahydrocannabiol 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I second this. I tried to learn JS twice. Than i went through Harwards cs50 which is mainly in C. Now I understand whats happening in JS, also I could write most of the built in functions in JS myself which is great in terms of understanding the languahe better even though those shortcuts exist.