I think it's really interesting to think about what is a good programming language for people to start with. It's something I have conflicted feelings about.
I think you might be right that Python is not a good first-language choice for people who want to be professional software developers. But I also think that software should be open to more people than that.
I think it's difficult to balance the advantages of learning things "right" the first time, and the concern that people might not learn anything at all if the content feels inaccessible. I worry about people picking up bad habits/not ever learning what is going on under the hood of their Python program, but I worry even more about people giving up on learning to program altogether.
Perhaps the answer is better teaching approaches & materials for languages that are considered more difficult to learn. Perhaps our entire approach for teaching programming needs updated so that the chosen language is less of a big deal. I don't know.
I think you may be right that some schools start out with Python because it's trendy, but perhaps there's a reason for that trendiness. It's definitely more accessible than, say, Haskell.
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I think it's really interesting to think about what is a good programming language for people to start with. It's something I have conflicted feelings about.
I think you might be right that Python is not a good first-language choice for people who want to be professional software developers. But I also think that software should be open to more people than that.
I think it's difficult to balance the advantages of learning things "right" the first time, and the concern that people might not learn anything at all if the content feels inaccessible. I worry about people picking up bad habits/not ever learning what is going on under the hood of their Python program, but I worry even more about people giving up on learning to program altogether.
Perhaps the answer is better teaching approaches & materials for languages that are considered more difficult to learn. Perhaps our entire approach for teaching programming needs updated so that the chosen language is less of a big deal. I don't know.
I think you may be right that some schools start out with Python because it's trendy, but perhaps there's a reason for that trendiness. It's definitely more accessible than, say, Haskell.