Ask HN: Have you tried teaching coding by starting with a functional language? - mlejva
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cjbprime
FWIW this was common in British universities in the early 2000s -- the intro
CS courses would be taught in a functional language like SML or OCaml. I think
the professors liked that you don't end up with this situation where half the
class already learned C and is bored, and half didn't and are going to need to
spend a few months understanding what a pointer is. Everyone's equally
unfamiliar with SML.

I think they've all switched to Python or Java now, though.

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mlejva
I was thinking it would be an interesting experiment to have two groups of
complete beginners. Teach one group with “functional language first” approach
and the other one with “non functional language first” approach.

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mlejva
If so, what were the results? How did people react when you showed them non-
functional languages later?

