As a first language, I think Haskell is too safe. It forbids you from doing too many things that the computer can do. I recently talked to someone who was learning Haskell as a first language, and it was a surreal experience. It was obvious that he wasn&#x27;t having fun in the sandbox, but he couldn&#x27;t articulate it because he&#x27;d never been outside the sandbox.<p>My own first language was QBasic and I&#x27;m very happy about it. If I&#x27;d been made to suffer through parsers instead of putting colorful circles on the screen, I would think of programming as hard work, and that probably wouldn&#x27;t lead to a very good career.