What programming language does your school teach first

[jimi_hendrix]

just curious on what language schools are teaching newbies

[Simian Man]

C++ at both my undergrad and graduate schools. I would prefer C were taught, but thank God it isn't Java.

[run1206]

they teach Java at my school, they switched over from C++ the semester i came in, but the junior and senior classes expect you to know both C++ and Java :?

[jimi_hendrix]

we have a java class but no one takes it so...

[maximinus_uk]

Showing my age here, but in my time at university it was Pascal followed by 8086 machine code :D

[.Maleficus.]

My school doesn't have any class that they require taking first, but I am only in high school so...

Anyways, we only have HTML, VB2005 and Pascal. They're all kind of weak.

[fiddler616]

Since AP Computer Science is in Java, we take it. They also have an HTML class, and a "Creating Windows Software" class (I have no idea what they do, it only meets for half of a semester).

[jimi_hendrix]

My school doesn't have any class that they require taking first, but I am only in high school so...

Anyways, we only have HTML, VB2005 and Pascal. They're all kind of weak.

someone still teaches pascal?!!?

[Paul Miller]

I'm not even in the CS department here, but based on the textbook they use, it appears to be C#.

[shadylookin]

they teach java since 2006 before that it was c++

unfortunately now that I've reached the junior and senior level courses they've started to expect c/c++ without actually teaching it to us. While some of the older students that learned under c++ are forced to use java and despite no formal instruction

[cabalas]

When I started my undergrad they taught C++ as our first language then we moved onto a variety of languages depending what area we chose to specialise in. During my postgrad studies it was mostly C/C++/C# (for various projects and research). Though last year the uni started teaching C# as the first language.

Did have one neat class in my third year where we studied a variety of languages spending about 2 weeks per language.

[fiddler616]

Did have one neat class in my third year where we studied a variety of languages spending about 2 weeks per language.

That's really cool. Was it actually helpful, or was it just "Oh, now I have a general idea of what makes <insert language here> different from the other languages."?

[Jastonite]

I was not in the Computer Science department, so this probably is not relevant to the thread, but my Chemical Engineering department required that we take Fortran. Last year they switched to C++.

[fiddler616]

I was not in the Computer Science department, so this probably is not relevant to the thread, but my Chemical Engineering department required that we take Fortran. Last year they switched to C++.
I'd be interested to hear what scientists have to say about SciPy (I think that's what it's called). But we're definitely getting OT.

[cabalas]

That's really cool. Was it actually helpful, or was it just "Oh, now I have a general idea of what makes <insert language here> different from the other languages."?

I found it helpful. The aim of it I think was to show in what circumstances some languages were better suited than others and how to make the decision about which to use.

The things I got out of was that it gave me a better insight into the languages I thought I knew well and it really helped me with my functional programming which I was a bit weak on at the time.

[Frak]

COBOL is usually first (on EMACS on Linux machines), then Fortran, then Java.

[EV500B]

It's Pascal, i think! (couldn't even been C/++)

[kjohansen]

My school teaches Resolve C++, a terrible abstraction of C++. Thankfully I was an econ undergrad major and switched to CS for grad school and didnt have to take the Resolve C++ courses.

[aszxcv]

java is pretty much the only language they really teach

[Sorivenul]

Both undergraduate institutions I went to taught Java first. My first institution had been teaching Java as a first language since 2000, and the second institution switched its introductory curriculum from C++ to Java in 2003.

[Occasionally Correct]

Last semester I took a software design course where, near the end, we started using a machine code simulator. In my UNIX class we're doing Bash and then moving on to C.

[zolookas]

Here in Lithuania schools teach only Pascal and nothing else. In university there is a one semester basically to "remind yourself what you have forgotten about Pascal during summer holidays" and after that C and C++. I have also been learning 8086 DOS asm in the first semester, but i don't think it applies to all universities here.

[feelshift]

Here in Romania they teach us C/C++.

[CptPicard]

At my uni (CS @*Uni. Helsinki) there was actually just two mandatory "programming" classes, and both were Java, both taught as the first thing. After that, you could take an undergrad C class as an elective, and C++ was not actually taught at all.

The point of the required Java classes was that all students had at least some language to turn in future programming assignments in -- but you could always arrange some other language if there was a TA who agreed to mark it. Not that there were all that many programming assignments anyway... as in a proper CS program you should focus more on the algorithms and theory.

[Sidneyaks]

My high school taught Visual Basic (some version) then moved on to C. I would have much rather just learned C though. The local uni starts out with C, which is required. I think later on some others might be taught, but I know C is the main one.

[Tony Flury]

A history blast here - from 20 years ago in the UK worrying that is has not changed much :

1st Year : Pascal
2nd Year : Pascal again - and C
3rd Year : C, Ocaam, Fortran, Forth and some assembly (if you wanted to - i think you could even optionally do Cobol.

C++ was not covered in any course (and of course Java, Python had not be invented).

When I entered the work place - everything was written in C on nearly all significant projects.

I did not encounter C++ in work until the early 90's.

[mulletboyjay]

we were taught Java first but thats doing the maths degree
we learnt matlab and R as well but . . .
but this year we learnt (well taught ourselves) C, Lisp and Haskell
the compsci ppl learn a few in the first year but we didnt

[Bachstelze]

Seems I'm the only one who did Scheme. :D

[sujoy]

1st year: C
2nd year: C++ (not much, just the basics)
3rd year: Java, Shell scripts
4th year: VB, Lisp (only basics)

[coachabower]

High school in Plymouth, Mass taught c++ for Juniors and Seniors(though I took it as a sophomore).

Florida Institute of Technology teaches Java for CS and Software Engineering students first. Classes labeled as Intro to programming with c++/Fortran/c# are available as electives and are required by some other degrees.

As a software engineering major I am currently taking a class called programming in a second language which is entirely c++. That class is also the reason I'm on this forum, the instructor wanted us to use linux, not required but heavily suggested for programming in c++.

[run1206]

yeah my college (New Jersey Institute of Technology) has Java for the primary language in our CS dept too. Most of the other languages are either undergrad CS classes or IT/Comp. Eng. graduate classes :(

I didn't learn about Linux (from school directly) until junior year; i wish they would introduce more languages and other operating systems earlier.

[howlingmadhowie]

Seems I'm the only one who did Scheme. :D

scheme!!!!! \\:D/ \\:D/ \\:D/

my all time favourite language :)

at university here in jena, germany, if you study computer science you get a lot of java, some lisp and some cobol (honest!). for the algorithm courses you can use whatever language the boss allows. most people used java (which was recommended). i used a different language each week :-D

there's also a fair bit of turing machine at the start of the course and lots of theoretical stuff as well. dijkstra would be proud.

[Juffo-Wup]

Here at the Universidad Austral de Chile they teach Python to CS (engineering, yeah weird title, but it's commonplace on Spanish speaking countries) students in the first semester, but the other engineering students get taught VB (and in 'my day' --2006-- they had to suffer VB6, which was already obsolete).

Then you have to learn Java for the OOP course (or 'module', as they like to call them here) in the second semester. After that, C++, Matlab, ADA and C for some other modules, as well as some Lisp dialect for the AI course near the very end of the program, but it's mostly Java throughout for various compulsory workshops and subjects.

[Rizado]

They have been teaching java as first language since 97 or so, and it's a nice language to program in. You can really learn OO without a lot of bad habits.

[imdano]

In High School it was C++ (though I've heard they have since switched to Java), and at Boston College it was Java. I also took courses that covered C, Scheme, and ML.

[Bachstelze]

scheme!!!!! \\:D/ \\:D/ \\:D/

my all time favourite language :)

Hehe, so you can tell people to come at Paris-VI if they want to study the best language first. :D

[Reiger]

Java first, SQL & XPATH (part of the DB course) next, Haskell 3rd...

Mind you: excepting the Java course (which is introduction level, Haskell for instance is 'intermediate' level) all courses did show the basics of the language but not really _teach_ it. You are kind of expected to do that on your own, when working on the practical assignments.

[kaivalagi]

almost 15 years ago my Uni started with Pascal, then onto C and Assembler, and I added a bit of Delphi too for GUI work.

I did engineering not CS hence the assembler...

I think the CS guys moved into C++ soon after C

[Caduceus]

At college (in the UK) they teach VB6 and C++ (so far at least) on the course I'm doing ¬_¬

[PythonPower]

BASIC and Java.

[loganwm]

Visual Basic is officially sponsored by my school district as the initial programming language to learn in the first two courses, but AP Computer Science is almost strictly Java which is alright.

The teacher encourages my outside studies when I use other languages and in spite of the small size of the class (just myself and three friends) we accomplish quite a bit.

[lilbill]

High school...none. We didn't really have programming.

In college we started with C/C++ Yeah we did lots of pointers in my first class. Then everyone else shyed away from them in later courses :o

[stevescripts]

Showing my age here too ... ;)

Waay back when, the first programming course I took in college was FORTRAN...

(FORTRAN II - for what it's worth)

A few years ago when I got back into hacking, I wanted a C class, but all that
was available for me at that time in a local JUCO - was a choice of C++ or JAVA...

Steve

[HotCupOfJava]

Well, it has been almost a decade since I had any classes, but....

COBOL was the first one they covered.
Visual Basic was next.
Then C.
Java was last, and the most extensive (more actual coursework, I mean).

My class had a hard time wrapping our minds around OOP after those first three languages, so some of us were pulling our hair out with Java. It didn't help me that I had actually began programming back in the 80's with Atari Basic.

OOP makes the most sense to me now, though - and I gravitate toward Java for most of my code-writing.

[kavon89]

In my high school we have Computer Programming 1 (BASIC), Computer Programming 2 (C++), then AP Computer Science (Java).

Essentially students in my school never really learn a syntax well enough before it is changed on them.

[Voland]

In Russia we often learn Pascal/Turbo Pascal/Object Pascal, but it depends. There are C/C++ classes in some schools.