Learning Programming In a Post-BASIC World

ErichTheRed writes "This Computerworld piece actually got me thinking — it basically says that there are few good 'starter languages' to get students interested in programming. I remember hacking away at BASIC incessantly when I was a kid, and it taught me a lot about logic and computers in general. Has the level of abstraction in computer systems reached a point where beginners can't just code something quick without a huge amount of back-story? I find this to be the case now; scripting languages are good, but limited in what you can do... and GUI creation requires students to be familiar with a lot of concepts (event handling, etc.) that aren't intuitive for beginners. What would you show a beginner first — JavaScript? Python? How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?"

Comments

And why doesnt BASIC still work?

[ninthbit]

And why doesnt BASIC still work? Any reason they can't still use BASIC?

Re:what I did

[i kan reed]

God no. Visual basic is a very syntax sensitive language with huge libraries. It is like the anti-beginner language. Even microsoft's other major .NET offering(C#) is better.

My reccomendation is python, with a lean towards using graphics libraries like vpython. Being able to go mysphere=sphere() is glorioiusly simple and have it show up in 3d is grand.

Python has the following features that are great for learning:
interactive debugger- type your program line by and and see what each line does.
english-like syntax(except elif). As much as possible, python is designed to be written as it would be read out loud. eg: for item in array: print item
at the language level, absolutely no machine restrictions. Integers can get as big as your ram, no pointer math,

It's almost certainly the best choice.