Maybe Joel is right, maybe not. It might depend on the person. At 13 years old I tried learning C++, at 14 Java, at 16 C.
None of them stuck. Part of it was that the concepts were too difficult to understand. In which case Joel's list might help, as it is more about concepts than teaching programming. I think a bigger part of the problem was that it was too difficult to write anything useful in those languages. After a semester of C (Intro to Programming) I don't think I could write a single useful program. If it was a semester of Python I'm damn sure I could write useful code after it.
I wish a book like "Learn Python The Hard Way" existed back then. It would have been great to understand the basic concepts of programming, and see the code actually work. I remember a C class where the instructor was teaching about arrays. I don't think a single person in the class really understood what he was talking about. Compare that to Python lists and dictionaries, you can see them work, you understand what they do and how to use them immediately.
I'll take Joel's advice and read those books. But I'm not sure they are best way for people to start.
None of them stuck. Part of it was that the concepts were too difficult to understand. In which case Joel's list might help, as it is more about concepts than teaching programming. I think a bigger part of the problem was that it was too difficult to write anything useful in those languages. After a semester of C (Intro to Programming) I don't think I could write a single useful program. If it was a semester of Python I'm damn sure I could write useful code after it.
I wish a book like "Learn Python The Hard Way" existed back then. It would have been great to understand the basic concepts of programming, and see the code actually work. I remember a C class where the instructor was teaching about arrays. I don't think a single person in the class really understood what he was talking about. Compare that to Python lists and dictionaries, you can see them work, you understand what they do and how to use them immediately.
I'll take Joel's advice and read those books. But I'm not sure they are best way for people to start.