In a message of Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:25:40 +0200, Laura Creighton writes: >A first programming language should be interpreted not compiled. It >should also not have type declarations. > >Laura
correction: it should not have type declarations, unless it is Haskell, which is another pretty good first programming language, but which also can be described as 'nothing _but_ type definitions, with a little bit of language tacked on that makes it possible to run programs. :-)'. People who are learning how to program are learning how to write executable alogrithms. They need to get to the algorithm part as quickly as they can, with as little superfluous junk as possible. Learning to write algorithms is hard enough as it is. Everything from braces and begin/end blocks, and all the stuff you learn in order to make things easier for the compiler or interpreter to generate code are things that only get in the way of the novice programmer actually learning how to write algorithms. Laura _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
