A friend's high-school age son has an interest in becoming a (games) programmer. He's taken a VB class (at school) and this semester will be taking java (also at school). Naturally, I told him he should learn perl either instead of or along with java, and since his teachers haven't heard of perl, he is learning it outside school on his own time.

I'd be interested to hear of any monks' adventures with introducing perl into schools, particularly with regard to overcoming school board resistance. Also of any experience with perl as a teaching language specifically - what are your thoughts concerning using perl to learn to program, vs learning to program with perl? Coming from a C background myself I am unable to evaluate the merits of perl as a first language. Ideally I'd like to start the boy down the right path before he becomes too entrenched in the java way of things.

This is a private school, so I don't have to worry about meeting local or national curriculum requirements.

In reply to Perl Advocacy w.r.t Teaching by moot

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