Learning a new language

Yamoto42 · June 26, 2017

On 6/25/2017 at 0:37 AM, M.Yurizaki said:

Though I will criticize its use of "elif" instead of "else if"

If I had to guess that choice was probably made to avoid a multi-word token.

Beskamir · June 26, 2017

7 hours ago, edward30 said:

I never said that it entirely determines how well you do in a field. The Dijkstra quote was simply to underscore that the topic of teaching languages is an important one. Don't resort to straw man arguments. I said that teaching students Python rather than C could discourage smart kids, while encouraging the less intelligent ones. If you stop to think about what I've said, that the smart kids will respond to a challenge, it makes a good deal of sense.

In the US there is a sizable population of high IQ individuals who are underachievers. And there is reason to believe that a good deal of this is caused by a lack of adequate academic challenge and support.

People can go on from languages like JS or Python or whatever language and do well, but we're talking about what is taught in schools, and what people SHOULD learn first. When kids go to school to learn programming, or ask for advice on a first language, they're going to get their first taste, their initial understanding of what programming is, from what they're taught/advised. Telling a smart person, as far as they can see, that programming IS Python, is a great way to torch their interest.

It doesn't seem you guys are serious about this discussion, so let's table it.

I don't think intelligence would affect someone's ability to learn how to code whether they start with Python or C. I suppose we could be more clear about the language not mattering when we make first language recommendations but I'd assume a smart person would be able to realise that pretty quickly.

Edit: We're "serious" about this cause we think you're approach to teaching people programming is, for lack of a better words, stupid and egotistic. Anyway you're probably right this argument is taking up way too much time and I've still got to finish a prolog assignment in under 24 hours.