&gt; In my university, Programming 101 (mandatory) was (and is) Haskell.<p>I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a good idea because it might discourage a lot of students from the get go and they might simply drop out.<p>It&#x27;s well established today that the language you start with has little impact on your mastery of the field years later (most of us started with BASIC I bet), so you might as well start with an easy language that will get people hooked.<p>If the students are curious and talented, they will move on to more complex things with time.