I'd recommend whatever paradigm best gets out of the way for new programmers. IMHO, in the first course, you shouldn't focus on the paradigm - you should focus on generally learning how to get computers to do things, and how to solve problems with them. Once the students know the basics, they can start learning different paradigms and the tradeoffs between them.
I'd recommend whatever paradigm best gets out of the way for new programmers. IMHO, in the first course, you shouldn't focus on the paradigm - you should focus on generally learning how to get computers to do things, and how to solve problems with them. Once the students know the basics, they can start learning different paradigms and the tradeoffs between them.