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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 10:57:48 +1100
Subject: Re: What killed Smalltalk could kill Python
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 10:46 AM, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Meanwhile, there's this:  http://prog21.dadgum.com/203.html
> "Retiring Python as a Teaching Language"
>
> tl;dr: he's switched to recommending Javascript as a first language
> instead of Python, since JS makes it easier to write graphics and games,
> which is what lots of beginners are interested in now.

Bad idea. Better to pick a language that makes it easy to get things
right, and then work on the fun side with third-party libraries, than
to tempt people in with "hey look how easy it is to do X" and then
have them stuck with an inferior or flawed language. Too many people
already don't know the difference between UTF-16 and Unicode. Please,
educators, don't make it worse.

ChrisA