Experiences/guidance on teaching Python as a first programming language

[rusi]

On Tuesday, December 17, 2013 4:42:07 PM UTC+5:30, Oscar Benjamin wrote:
> On 17 December 2013 00:39, rusi wrote:
> > I had a paper some years ago on why C is a horrible language *to teach with*
> > http://www.the-magus.in/Publications/chor.pdf

> Thanks for this Rusi, I just read it and it describes very well what I
> think about our own C course. My choice quote from the beginning would
> be "When the irrelevant becomes significant, the essentials become
> obscured and incomprehensible."

> (BTW is there any reason that the document is repeated twice in the same pdf?)

Thanks for the heads-up -- some pdf generation issues I guess

Is it ok now?

Yeah I could clean up some more formatting some more but its 25 years now and
Ive forgotten my troff!!

More important the tone is not what I would use today.
The point I was trying to make then was:

C is an unsuitable language to TEACH PROGRAMMING WITH because it fills
students' brains with irreleventia

Once one knows the stuff, C is a NEAT programming language.

IOW its a question of learning-curve not the content.