<quote who="Geoffrey Robertson">
> Which should I teach first, Python or C++ ?
You're teaching people *how* to program?
Python... *maybe* then C++. ;)
How about a completely left field suggestion? Try "Blue", which you'll find
on Freshmeat. It was the first semester objec-oriented language taught at
Sydney Uni for quite some time. It's kinda Pascally-Haskelly-Javarey-C.
There is also a Java version of the Blue environment, called BlueJ.
It got a very vindictive trashing from advanced students, puzzled looks from
complete newbies, but a few years out from dealing with it, most actually
credit it as a good educational environment.
[ I keep saying environment because it's essentially an IDE. It has an
editor, interface views, and also a farily tactile method of interacting
with your live object instances. Pretty cool. ]
If C++ is the "marketing drawcard", you need something you can actually
teach in a more holistic fashion - something even a dolt like myself can
grasp. ;) Python is great for that, and you can actually go further with it,
unlike many other so-called teaching languages.
- Jeff (wearing his "I am not a customer" tshirt, which really got up his
Maths teachers nose all those years ago)
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