I learned a lot about the syntax and rules of Pascal when I took the class and next to nothing about concepts. In the C++ days, lots of teachers worried about whether students would be able to compile their code at all. Java doesn't seem like an improvement as a teaching language. - Jeremy Hylton

I already knew Pascal, but I learned a bunch of the classical CS stuff about algorithms and data structures: binary trees, sorting, that kind of thing. Looks like that's because I took AB (which is what they're cutting!) rather than A: http://www.collegeboard.com/st.... I feel like the class changed me from being a BASIC programmer who knew Pascal to being a Pascal programmer. - ⓞnor

Java doesn't seem like an improvement as a teaching language? Why not? - ƃuɐʞ

Why would it be? I mean, it's obviously good to use a real-world language, but from a strictly pedagogical point of view I don't see why Java would be better than Pascal. If anything, the OO stuff seems like a confusing distraction: to write "hello world" you have to explain about "class" and "public static", or just leave those words as magic boilerplate to be explained later. - ⓞnor

yeah, i think it's always better to not teach in languages that aren't really in common use -- cut out the middle man - j1m

Java is better than Pascal because real world people actually use Java. the majority of CS high school students are not going to go on to become hardcore software engineers.... - ƃuɐʞ

java is awfully verbose but pascal isn't that much better. languages with interactive loops seem like a nice thing for newcomers to experiment (and pascal, c, java all lack that). - Larry Greenfield

Why not just use python to teach? Is there some requirement to know about strong typing when you first learn to program? - Chris White

I think it might be fun to teach CS with Javascript. I feel like everything else is a million miles away from anything relevant or useful, but writing little Javascript toys that do simple things on web pages seems like it's something students could direct relate to. You could teach linked lists there as well as anywhere (though I have no idea why you would teach linked lists at all). - ⓞnor

brian kernighan uses javascript as a first language for his CS-for-non-majors course at princeton. http://www.cs.princeton.edu/co... - Larry Greenfield