Why MIT Switched from Scheme to Python (2009)
I think there's a tension between two imperatives in teaching new programmers:<p>1) Learning must be applied learning. Give people problems to solve and they will come to you for data structures and algorithms, O notation, etc. If they don't, they should do something else<p>2) A lot of what's out there in programming languages are cargo cults, and newbies need to be prepared for this. For instance, virtual function inheritance isn't a thing. It's a weird call chain pipeline system glued into your vtable, which C++/Java teaching also won't bother to tell you exists. Make people start from assembly, graduate to C, then write their OWN vtable, so it's demystified. Now you've reduced the ability of software designers to piss on your leg and tell you it's raining.<p>So ideally I'd want students (at first) to be doing something either close to the machine or in the functional model. As they say though, the imperative of 1) means getting people to actually produce something, which is easier in Python.