Re: Beginner's Language?

[Lex Spoon <lex@cc.gatech.edu>]

> Scheme was a fourth or fifth language for me and I like it, but I
> wouldn't deem it proper for a first course. Procedural programming IS
> a low level business, but it helps us to see that computers do what we
> tell them, not what we want them to do.


Others disagree, of course.  One wonderful thing about Scheme is that
it's very easy to learn recursion with it.  I don't think I really
understood recursion until I saw the way it's formulated in Scheme:

        (defun myfunc (x1 x2)
          (cond
            ((base case 1)  (code for base case 1))
            ((base case 2)  (code for base case 2))
            ((... however many base cases you want...))
            ((recursive case)  (recursive code))))



There are lots of things to think about when picking an initial
language.  One of the most important for rank beginners is the
*primitives* that are available.  If the learner is happy averaging
lists of numbers and generating sentences and things like that, then
Scheme is a wonderful place to start, but many beginners would be
happier playing with graphical objcets....

Lex