Learning Programming In a Post-BASIC World

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ErichTheRed writes "This Computerworld piece actually got me thinking — it basically says that there are few good 'starter languages' to get students interested in programming. I remember hacking away at BASIC incessantly when I was a kid, and it taught me a lot about logic and computers in general. Has the level of abstraction in computer systems reached a point where beginners can't just code something quick without a huge amount of back-story? I find this to be the case now; scripting languages are good, but limited in what you can do... and GUI creation requires students to be familiar with a lot of concepts (event handling, etc.) that aren't intuitive for beginners. What would you show a beginner first — JavaScript? Python? How do you get the instant gratification we oldies got when sitting down in front of the early-80s home computers?"http://a.fsdn.com/sd/facebook_icon_large.png (http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.slashdot.org% 2Fstory%2F11%2F06%2F24%2F1426258%2FLearning-Programming-In-a-Post-BASIC-World%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfaceb ook) http://a.fsdn.com/sd/twitter_icon_large.png (http://twitter.com/home?status=Learning+Programming+In+a+Post-BASIC+World%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2FkoRprH)
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