[fpc-other] slashdot article: The Best First Language For a Young Programmer

[Nikolay Nikolov]

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1314993&cid=28818395

Pretty much no one suggests starting out with Pascal. :(

This got me thinking... Pascal used to be _the_ language to learn 
programming (although it's powerful enough not only for that, but for 
pretty much anything), so is there something that new languages like 
Python really have, that Pascal doesn't or is it just a matter of 
perception that "Pascal is dead" and "new is better"? Are there any real 
advantages in starting out with Python, Java, etc? What needs to be done 
to change that? For example, a better IDE, a better debugger, some sort 
of libraries and tools suitable for beginners? Or is it only marketing 
that we need? :)

And no, I didn't start with Pascal, although I love it. I started with 
BASIC on an 8-bit machine :)