[PSF-Community] Research on teaching Python vs. other languages?

[C. Titus Brown]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 04:02:04PM -0400, Ned Batchelder wrote:
> A friend at a CS department is advocating to switch to Python as the  
> teaching language rather than Java.  Some of his peers would like some  
> evidence (research?) that Python is better-suited as a first language.  
> Anyone have links to such a thing?

Hi Ned,

in addition to the other great suggestions, please see this research work:

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1734437

showing

"""
Python versus C++ CS1 preparation was not a predictor of performance in any course. We conclude again that in our C++ based curriculum changing CS1 to Python had no negative impact on student performance and did not require any significant change in those subsequent courses.
"""

Bill and Rich have a substantial body of knowledge in this area and I'd
be happy to introduce you to them; they're former colleagues at Michigan
State and quite nice people!

I think I can say that the chief advantage they got out of switching to
Python at Michigan State was in the engagement of non-CS majors in the
course.  An awful lot of people found the course much more useful to their
research and work when it was taught in Python than when it was taught
in C++, which helped with attendance and follow-through in the courses.

cheers,
--titus
-- 
C. Titus Brown, ctbrown at ucdavis.edu