Regarding learning with JavaScript: +1 For JavaScript being a great language to learn in.
Not only can you demonstrate an OOP methodology of software development with JavaScript, but you could event demonstrate functional programming to students as well. The best/worst thing about JavaScript is that it will adapt to any paradigm that you want it to. I've been coding in JavaScript quite a bit in the last few years, first on the Mozilla Platform, and now on the Node.js server side JavaScript engine. I'll freely admit that it is my favorite language to write software in now. JavaScript has been given a bad rap over the last couple of decades, but has "grown up" quickly in just the last few years. JavaScript does not have to be about the DOM, and has actually outgrown the browser to be one of the best programming environments for IO bound applications in complex networks. I'm currently running an Amazon EC2 cluster with automated deployment, monitoring, and recovery systems all developed in JavaScript (in the Node.js environment), and using far less machine resources than anything I've ever used before for the same type of application. If you had told me that 5 years ago I would have laughed at you. It might actually be interesting for a beginner to install Node.js, where they can play with an actual REPL, read files, and talk to other servers. Then again, maybe beginners would find it more interesting to push pixels around in a browser instead. Anyway, you can get Node.js for Linux, Windows, and OSX from here: http://nodejs.org/ -- Kris Walker _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) Vassar College Jan 4 - Getting Involved in Open Source Feb 1 - Home Networking Made Simple with Amahi Home Server
