Actually, a language which resembles English more than, say, Java or C is more intuitive - Perl only starts to get confusing when you start expecting things from it based on experience.

And, in terms of functionality, Perl is more intuitive to people who don't have the same prejudices that veterens have. Dear God - can you imagine trying to deal with the fundamental nature of an orthagonal language when the students don't understand why you can't just DO it? To a newbie, there aren't layers to a computer - why can't I just make a window? Or clear the screen? I'm programming the computer, why can't I just tell it to do things that I know it can do? (this is one of the reasons VBasic is a strong contender where Win32 systems are the norm)

The principles of programming should be established before we explain the concept of problem domains, or building archetecture before getting to the problem. The advantage is that Perl will be a usable skill to them if they pursue programmin - as opposed to a teaching language, which you never use again. Additionally, they can go out and write CGI scripts - the only kind of application that a newbie can write and have something productive occur.

Cheers,
Erik

In reply to Re: Perl High School by erikharrison
in thread Perl High School by hsweet

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