[geeks] Introductory programming language?

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Quoth Lionel Peterson ...

> The biggest knock against BASIC/PHP are that they corrupt the 
> students ability to learn other languages - I don't think 
> that's a real concern for her (she seems more curious than 
> anything, as I read the OP).

Based on my experience, BASIC's corrupting folks is no concern at all.  My
first exposure to programming was real Dartmouth BASIC, on a Univac <mumble>
using real Teletypes, paper tape, and all those relics.  I went on to work
professionally in 24 other languages over the next 30 or so years, so I
don't seem to have been too corrupted by my early exposure to BASIC. 

On the OP's friend's original question, though, I would say that, because
various languages are better at some things than at others, choosing one
would depend a lot on what sort of stuff she wants to do.  Since most of the
projects I undertake these days are (a) recreational and (b) nothing too
slick in the UI department, I'm mostly using the *nix shell language.  A
Cygwin installation on her Windows box, and a dead-tree copy of K&P's "The
Unix Programming Environment" is a combination that should be in the
running.

-Shel