Submission + - Best paradigm for a first programming course?
Keyper7 writes: The first programming course I had during my computer science graduation, aptly named "Introduction to Programming", was given in C because its focus was on imperative programming. A little before I graduated, though, it was decided that it would change to object-oriented programming with Java. I must emphasize that such change was not made because of any hype about Java or to dumb down the course: back then and nowadays, it's given by good Java programmers who try to teach good practices and do not encourage excessive reliance on libraries. But the practices taught are not paradigm-independent, and this sparkled a discussion that continues until today: which paradigm is more adequate to introduce programming? Besides imperative and object-oriented, I know teachers who firmly believe that functional programming is the best choice. I'm interested in language-independent opinions that slashdotters might have on this matter. Which paradigm is good to introduce programming while keeping a freshman's mind free enough for him to learn other paradigms afterwards?
