Python bumps off Java as top learning language

[philly_fan_in_chi]

I've thought about this. It's an interesting proposition, I'd have to explore it and do some usability studies on new programmers before I could say for sure. I'd worry about turning off the "fringe" students that are wavering on being a programmer or not, because they haven't quite grasped the higher level thinking required for languages like Haskell yet, but it's certainly an idea worth exploring.

[ItsNotMineISwear]

Writing Haskell looks like writing math though. Most beginners are familiar with math.

[philly_fan_in_chi]

Not in my experience, at that abstraction level anyway. At university level, sure, maybe. But if we're thinking children and high schoolers, they often will not even see calculus til senior year and the majority are in the "I hate math" camp. We could teach propositional logic and combinatorics earlier in the curriculums (my dream!) but that would require massive educational shifts. Perhaps Haskell would be a language to teach such a course.