Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

[Wolfgang Keller]

> I'm particularly interested to know if anyone can share experience of
> switching to teaching Python as a first programming language in a
> similar context. A written up case study that I could circulate among
> the relevant staff would be especially useful.

Just one experience from the "other" (student's) side.

When I started to study engineering science in 1991, Pascal was the
"first language" at the university in question (there were no
programming classes at highschool over here at that time yet). The class
was quite motivating and taught me some essential basics, I think.
Although issues such as object-orientation or event-based (GUI)
programming were not even mentioned, which is something that I'm
desperately missing today.

When I went to a different university (in 1993), still in engineering
science, they used C as the "first language" in the class there. The
result was that I tried (and succeeded) to pass that class with the
strict minimum of effort possible and deliberately forgot everything
that I had to learn about C as quickly as possible afterwards. I was a
"very good" student back then otherwise, so this was not due to
general laziness. What that class has taught me, essentially, was to
*hate* C. And it was not an issue of bad teachers. And they didn't mean
to make me hate C, after all, it was them who had chosen that language.
I never ever used C for anything (outside of that class). And ever
after that experience, I avoided all languages that were even remotely
similar to C, such as C++, Java, C#, Javascript, PHP etc.

In numerics classes and for research projects, I had to learn and use
Fortran, which was easy after the introduction with Pascal. The
teachers who taught me Fortran easily were the same as those who made me
hate C. 

Then, I accidentally got in touch with Python (in 1994 iirc) and
thought it was interesting and useful. In fact Python is the only
programming language that I ever learned without being obliged to do
so. And the only one that I keep using whenever I have the choice.

Since then, the university that once used C as a "first language"
has switched to Python. Which is a good thing, imho. If I had had to
learn the basics of programming with C instead of Pascal, I most
certainly would have avoided anything even remotely connected to
programming ever since, even "office automation" through scripting
(which is what I use Python for today).

Sincerely,

Wolfgang