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I've taught hundreds of people programming. For one year, at my first real job, I was tasked with teaching the programmers within a big company Pascal. All of them were already professional programmers using Fortran, COBOL, or assembly language. The company had a commitment to modernize their software development practices and one facet of this was to introduce a more modern language--Pascal at that time (circa 1976).
I enjoyed that year and, for the most part, my "students" were easy to teach, and Pascal held up well. They were all programmers already, so I didn't have to go slow through the basics and introducing ideas like recursion (absent in Fortran, COBOL, and assembly language of the period) kept the classes new and interesting to the students.
Unfortunately, standard Pascal isn't really a good choice for a first programming language today, even though modern Pascals have removed many of early Pascal's limitations (packages, batteries included libraries, etc.)
So, how can we decide if a language is a viable first language? Employing the wisdom of crowds, here are the top 30 languages in the 2023 IEEE Spectrum rankings:
1-10: Python, Java, C++, C, Javascript, C#, SQL, Go, TypeScript, HTML.
11-20: R, Shell, PHP, Ruby, SAS, Swift, Dart, Rust, Kotlin, Matlab.
21-30: Scala, Assembly, Perl, Visual Basic, Objective-C, Lua, Fortran, Verilog, Groovy, Julia.
I contend that we should limit our choice of first-languages to some language in the top 30. This rules out many languages that I consider important, but we should stick with a language that is likely to benefit the student more than others as a first-language. That means not teaching Lisp or Racket or Ada or Ocaml or Prolog or even D for that matter as a first language.
To narrow our top 30 down to a handful of alternatives, I'm going to use my own subjective difficulty rating and remove C++ and Rust and Scala from the list because they will be too hard for beginners.
Furthermore, let's remove languages that aren't general purpose; this knocks out SQL, HTML, R, Shell, PHP, SAS, Matlab, Assembly, Visual Basic, and Verilog.
Some languages require more complex build or execution environments; I would remove Java, Dart, Kotlin, and Groovy from our list for this reason.
Finally, there are some languages that are not as easy to use outside of specific hardware or operating systems; I consider these languages C#, Swift and Objective-C to be ruled out.
For good measure, I'm removing Perl from the list (a bit too irregular) and Fortran (not widely used outside of some important areas).
Our condensed list now look like this:
Possible first languages: Python, JavaScript, Go, TypeScript, Ruby, and Julia.
To narrow it down even a bit further we can observe that one should learn JavaScript before learning Typescript. (Is this opinion shared by HN?)
Ruby and Python seem like close cousins with Ruby being a bit prettier and Python being much much more popular.
Julia is a bit specialized and a bit harder than the others so now we are left with just three: Python, JavaScript, and Go.
I think first programming languages need to fit with what the person's motivation is. If they want to do statistics, data analysis and the like then surely Python, R and the like will be a good starting point instead of Bash Shell. Also, the teacher having a very good command of said language as well as all the tools for the environment they'll be using (*nix container, Windows, Mac, etc.) makes a big difference. Things like setting up VS Code to debug something is a daunting task for a beginner with no idea on how to set it up (if they devote themselves to setting it up). Language choice isn't that big of a deal but getting a teacher who knows how to guide the student and teach them everything in said language is (the article shows how the author having a good command of D and knowing said tools taught effectively while he struggled with JS and Lua).
Limiting to top 30 programming languages based on a particular ranking can be biased and misleading. For January 2024 D TIOBE ranking is 21, just outside Top 20 while your top 6 choice of Julia is outside top 30 at rank 33 [1]. D also support scripting and REPL feature as Julia, but D is much faster at them in which faster feedback is very important for new learners.
For proper pedagogical approach we should refer to the experts and educators. There is one paper from Monash University that have come up with major sins of introductory programming languages that are not suitable for new learners including Pascal that you used during your teaching time. I have provided the link to the paper in my other comment.
[1] TIOBE Index for January 2024:
I would say of your four contenders, you eliminated Julia too quickly, it's perfect.
For one reason: it's a dynamic language with types. It's good to have types in a first language, they're too important to neglect. But with Julia, you just introduce them later.
Also, 1 based indexing is easier on anyone who hasn't already gotten used to 0 based indexing, and it's the only language in your last paragraph where zero isn't false.
But it depends more on why they want to learn than anything else. If they want to make web apps, for some reason, obviously JavaScript, and if they like games, it should be Lua. Data and numerics stuff, AI? Julia obviously ;)
There are various reasons to rule out JS. It's a scripting language for browser engines, it's about as general-purpose as GLSL or ActionScript. Node grabbed it and forced it into a general-purpose suit it wasn't made for, but that's not a good reason to learn it as a first language. It's also simply a poorly designed language.
On the other hand, the reason given for excluding Java is seriously reaching. The JVM isn't "complex" from the student's point of view, and hello world (and other exercises) can be compiled with a simple javac invocation.
I think you tossed VB for the wrong reason. It's definitely a general purpose language but it's mostly limited to one platform so that's handled a few lines lower and it would still have led it to be tossed out. I agree with JS over TS for first learning because of the complete lack of a toolchain but later on you probably want to move to TS. Python agreed on as well, Go requires a lot of other knowledge and is a far more advanced eco system already so I'd have ruled out that one as well.
What happened to C? It's the #5 top language and you never ruled it out but it is missing from the final list? It seems like a reasonable first language with simple operations and not much magic happening behind the scenes.
On point but C# is now widely available on any OS under .NET (core) iso .NET Framework. It should be included in the shortlist in my opinion.
> Furthermore, let's remove languages that aren't general purpose; this knocks out SQL, HTML, R, Shell, PHP, SAS, Matlab, Assembly, Visual Basic, and Verilog.
Just a nitpick, but modern PHP is definitely a general-purpose language, and quite a decent one. Assembly is also inherently general-purpose, and might have a much higher learning curve, but its foundational nature also makes it an important step in a layered approach to learning (a la Nand2Tetris).
I'd throw Python out too, as it's just far too slow*, which would set wrong expectations for learners. While itmcaan be sped up by writing everything in C and calling it from Python you've already thrown C out, so that's not an option. The languages remaining are very unfortunate though: JS is infamously the language designed in 14 days, and Go is a Google project, so I wouldn't be surprised if programming in it awakens Deep Ones to feed on your sanity.
I missed why you tossed Lua from your list.
I can see why people think the tool chain may be hard for adults, but if the focus is on children learners, you can get Lua with the batteries included.
As a first language, I would teach python or javascript with java, C#, C, C++ as strong contenders depending on what they study, and possibly R or MATLAB is there is a very specific and good reason to do so
No.
Sorry but it just isn't. Nor are a whole pile of other interesting and useful programming languages. You need something that offers instant gratification, preferably an interpreted language or a language organized around an interactive prompt.
If I had to teach someone programming today I'd pick JS because it is available everywhere and it doesn't need any tooling at all. It's far from a perfect language but availability and ease of use trump language elegance and correctness. Even if that might mean you have to learn new concepts later and/or unlearn bad habits.
> You need something that offers instant gratification, preferably an interpreted language or a language organized around an interactive prompt.
> After half a year we moved on to our second language: Lua, specifically in the video game system Roblox. I almost wish we had skipped this one because it was a bit too advanced for these students, and I was not familiar with the language and the system to begin with.
Teaching something, like a programming language, that you don't know is really hard. But in this case there are 100's of Lua tutorials around Roblox. I would think that they could have done that.
While it's $15 per learner, an alternate could be Pico-8 https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php Lots of tutorials and lots of demos to look at.
this bit from the article surprised me
8<-------------
I spend an inordinate amount of time helping the kids set up their build environments, and having this built-in to the IDE or dub would be immensely helpful for using D for learning.
8<-------------
it does seem to have worked out in the end, but I would personally not have considered anything where building was not one click of a button in an ide; build toolchains add a tremendous amount of complexity to learning a new language, and especially if this is also an intro to programming I would consider it a fatal lack.
I ended up teaching a friend to program using Kotlin. The downside was just telling them to just accept what the IDE wizard lays down as gospel first but the advantage was that running code from main() or tests was always a fully IDE integrated experience. Explaining the build system boilerplate became natural when it came time to start adding dependencies to the project.
Don't underestimate how important that integrated experience is. Within their first month or so they were already using a real graphical debugger which is something I didn't pick up until much later because of where I started.
"The D Blog" came to the conclusion, that D is a good language for kids.
no one could have saw this coming! they cant keep getting away with it
BASIC and Pascal used to be "teaching languages", though Python & JS seem to have displaced them and teaching sure can be hard. This tries to use Nim: https://www.nimprogrammingbook.com/book/nimprogramming_adoc-...
I don't know, man. I am in a few casual programmer circles and I know two people who have stuck with D like their life depends on it, and they are constantly facing issues with weird language quirks making it impossible to write good, safe code. Through their fandom, I've made the personal decision to just stay away from it.
Related:
Teaching D from Scratch: Is it a viable first language? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711800 - Dec 2021 (74 comments)
I think Scratch makes a great introduction to programming because of the playfull assets which are bundled with it, sprites, sounds, backgrounds etc. This significantly lowers the bar to making something productive and visually stimulating, something which I believe is necessary to engage when competing with modern games, phones etc.
There is no text based language (please correct me if I have missed one) that makes any attempt to bridge this gap by providing a library of assets on tap. Yes there are places you can find sprites etc, but they are not just there, included. I feel this has been the biggest stumbling block for my daughter moving on from Scratch. To produce something in a text based language that even comes close is so much more work, anything that is achievable just isn't stimulating enough.
We have looked at Roblox, I agree with the article this has potential, making a moving platform in an obby for example, but this hasn't stuck with her. We have had more traction with custom ents in Minecraft, creating in Blockbench then messing with the configs to alter the behaviour, but this is just Mineraft specific.
I should hope to do more with js/ts scripting in Minecraft, but using bedrock this is in it's infancy so there isn't much out there for inspiration, hacking around with or tutorials for her to look at herself. In this regard, D is no better a first language than any other.
One of my favorite professors was using Processing, which was confusing for some, but it really helped that the students got to visually see results.
I have to wonder if we allowed people to learn programming significantly better when RAD IDE languages were more common like VB6 and Delphi. Something about visually seeing what you're building vs just seeing text on a screen. I guess it would only affect SOME people learning to code this way, because we have plenty of brilliant minds who had even less than a terminal at one point or another.
I found this while looking for the name of the (multiple) Minecraft mods that involve programming: https://mcreator.net/
It seems to be a Minecraft mod maker that simplifies the process of building a mod.
There's a page specifically about education: https://mcreator.net/education
The "Visual" series of IDEs used to exist. Also the "Builder" series from Borland.
It was the reason why Delphi (a kind of Visual Pascal Builder?) Was só stupidly popular. Same thing for Visual Basic.
I used to look down on then but now I realize they being gone is a bad thing.
We need another BASIC.
How far into Minecraft modding have you gotten?
> After half a year we moved on to our second language: Lua, specifically in the video game system Roblox. I almost wish we had skipped this one because it was a bit too advanced for these students
I wonder if they meant Lua or its integration with Roblox was too advanced. I would think Lua is a simpler and easier to learn language relative to Javascript and D.
Lua's simplicity is a liability for someone new to programming. The tiny standard library means you need to write by hand a lot of things you could just use in another language. Arguably good for learning fundamentals, but in practice just a good way to kill momentum and smother that learning spark that is the best resource of a novice.
Similarly the best way for a learner to stay motivated is to make something they are personally invested in, which usually involves integrating with something. With lua you need to get your hands into the toolchain and distribution stuff very early to do that, which has nothing to do with programming per se and is frustrating and disorienting for a newcomer.
I've taught people to code from scratch and lua is a worse-than-average language for it. It's a small language but that doesn't help a total novice very much. It's the core concepts of programming that is difficult for them, not memorizing language features. The only situation where I would use it is if they have a specific motivating goal that uses it, usually yes roblox.
My 10 year old loves programming and has a fair number of hours in Scratch and Roblox.
I've noticed when messing around with Scratch, he quickly progressed from leaning the language to using the language to solve his own problems. He moved from following tutorials to creating his own games and ideas quickly.
When playing with the the Roblox editor he would follow the Youtube tutorials, but never made the leap to making his own games. Roblox scripting is fairly wordy, you spend a far amount of time binding methods to long event handlers. There is a lot of text you have to type, and spell correctly, and remember. 10 year olds are very slow typists. I also spend a fair amount of time helping him fix small syntax errors which slowly sapped his enthusiasm.
The drag and drop, and drop downs in Scratch really helped him move quickly from learning the language, to using the language to make games.
If you want a compiled language with strong types, Swift actually is a very nice language for learning. It has very nice ergonomics, and the Swift Playgrounds iPad apps are really nice and engaging.
The last thing you want is types when you're a beginner. TCL/Shellscript, for all its defects, just has strings, which means you have expr num OPERATOR num. you also just have commands. I've seen beginners try to set a variable from whatever is printed, so the concept of a return type is a tricky one. funny, now that I think about it, php is actually a great introductory language because it just prints everything to stdout.
My first program was in BASIC. I was 6, and had other things to do before I got back on that journey, but the next one was in PHP.
By conventional wisdom and common proverbs, my mind should've been mutilated beyond any hope of recovery. (And maybe it is, who knows.) But this conventional wisdom tends to ignore the barrier to entry.
The C64 not only booted straight into BASIC, it also came with a book, and that first program that I copied from the book was not some silly "hello world" or a fizzbuzz, it was a piano. It demonstrated to me, that a computer is a means of expressing yourself creatively, and it did so in a form that was digestible to a 6yro.
The best first language is the one that comes pre-installed on your computer, with enough example code to get you hooked. (Which is why the iPad / Swift Playgrounds fills me with both hope and dread. But, considering where I came from, mostly hope.)
Something I've been tinkering with for a few years now - a learning programming language that runs in the browser and makes it easy to draw on the screen.
This is roughly the same as teaching Esperanto to child as his / her first language.
Pretty much anything can be a viable first language. My first language was 1980s BASIC, starting with very limited version (ZX80 and then Grundy Newbrain). I do not think that was a good first language though. It did not teach good habits, and it lacked a lot of concepts I had to start learning later.
Teaching is best done with Python, which is incidentally the world's most popular programming language.
Somewhat related, this is recent DConf 2023 presentation on Teaching Software Engineering in DLang:
Time to apply Betteridge's Law of Headlines here, namely, that any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.'
That certainly works for clickbaity headlines. This one seems like a genuine question.
Imagine a headline "Is Betteridge's Law of Headlines True?"
> I am confident that D can be a viable first language
Not sure what this confidence is based on, the basics are broken (toolchain, basic syntax errors you shouldn't even need a compile step to figure out, the squiggly error underline should be right there in your editor!), and what does sticking to "Vanilla D" offer as a benefit vs. some other language?
I’m not sure that the choice of the language matters a great deal for an intro course to be honest
There’s no way students can wrap their heads around advanced topics to the point where language selection matters that much
Of course toy languages like Brainfuck, low level stuff like pure assembly or archaic languages like COBOL would be detrimental to learning. But any mainstream language from the last forty years or so will have major crossovers with most others
I fail to see how D is that extreme compared to most other languages or any reason it should be pedagogically dismissed as a first language
What stop schools giving out pre-installed virtual machine images?
Most people don't setup their own environment for their first language....
But why? Why use esoteric languages no one knows?? Why teach someone a language they can’t use at work? Just teach Go it’s so simple and teaches you actually good practices unlike Python. Senior devs hate it and junior devs love it for the same reason.
I think “esoteric” is meant for brainfuck, maldbrot and similar. D, nim and co, are quite traditional in language design languages, just not popular (yet).
> Why teach someone a language they can’t use at work?
Not everything is about work, especially for children.