Hello,
I am thinking about teaching my students JavaScript first so that they can start creating websites and make their career, what are your thoughts?
C takes the cake
bashIf you’re wanting to teach programming concepts, I would start with scratch instead. This can be taught to little kids or older students. It’s what the free comp science class from Harvard starts with
The answer is Python
C teaches a whole variety of low level concepts that are helpful in any comp sci field. That’s my vote. Python holds your hand too much and JS would require more to get started. If they aren’t shooting for a comp sci degree and are just looking for helpful scripts then python would be fine.
What grade sudents is this for? Do you intend for this to be a dedicated class/semester or just a single unit? How good are they at operating a computer? (Typing, clicking, etc)
These are the questions that need answers before any meaningful advice can be given.
C and python simultaneously.
As a first language, JS is too much. They would need to learn three languages to make websites (JS, CSS, and HTML).
I’d start with Python. It’s easy to learn, and modern Python gives you the tools to write code that’s easy to read and follow without being too verbose.
uvshould make things very easy to setup too. Installuv, then give them a starter repo with the Python version set.uv runshould just work after that, no manual venv/conda/etc nonsense involved.I mean, they’ll probably learn more from C. But please. You can do better than javascript. At least teach them python or something.
I would teach Typescript. Being able to write the types down and hover things to see what types they are will definitely help them.
I think C would put them off. I also wouldn’t go with Python, in case they want to do things like write games or make websites, which are common tasks you can do with Typescript but not very well with Python.
Python has PyGame. For webdev it has some libraries but those do not really teach any basics.
Python’s performance is too poor to do anything serious. Go and look at the screenshots from Pygame. They look like ZX Spectrum era games.
Compare that to something like PixiJS.
Like a lot of people mentioned, there’s a few good things you could start with, but C is probably not one of them. At my old job I ran a course for software engineer 2s to go over C, and even they had some struggles with it. If professional engineers struggle with C, it’s maybe not the best starting point. Even C++ might be better, but still adds a lot of complexity that isn’t necessary to know as immediately as the beginning.
Whenever people ask me where to start, I say python. It gives you a relatively tame taste of environment setup, and can run code very easily and flexibly. Its type system is flexible enough to make a user aware of it, without it being as rigid as C or as vague as javascript. Because there’s enough libraries that are easy to pull in, even a beginner can start building useful programs without having to know how to build something equivalent to those libraries themselves.
Obviously if you want them to make websites, javascript will be necessary eventually, and isn’t a bad place to start. If you’re going purely for CS knowledge, I do think python is a little better; going from python to JS is probably easier than JS to python.
The fact that every computer has a browser where they can practice javascript probably makes it the better option. Python would probably require, on Windows, some setup that isn’t what you want to spend time on, and may be a barrier to them trying stuff on their own time at home.
Depends in the goal.
If they are interested in Hardware, there is no better solution, than buying a hand full of cheap, “knock-off” Arduino Nano or RP2040 boards, a couple of LEDs and resistors and then let them Experiment with Arduino C, which teaches C programming in a fun and meaningful manner.
If they should get actual useful skill, start with Python. It’s easy to learn. It’s widely used for small, single-person projects, e.g. for gathering and analyzing data, running simulations, organizing something, interacting with APIs…
For any project, where I’d say, that it can be done quickly by a single person quickly on the side, Python is usually the best option. Even for experienced programmers. But especially for people that are new to programming or learning. It’s easy, approachable and (because everything is handled by some library) quite safe to work with.
It’s by far the most useful language for anyone that isn’t a full software developer. And it’s among the easiest to learn.
Also, when teaching Python, consider teaching with Jupyer documents. It immediately shows, what the short block of code is doing, instead of writing a huge and long script file, then executing it and struggling with debugging where students might not even know, how to start. An easy to host solution to supply Jupyer to a whole class is JupyterHub. If you aren’t concerned about your students data, Google Colab is a JupyterHub for free.
And now, finally, if you want a course that has some practical use (e.g. data analysis and math stuff) while also doing fun things and being incredibly interactive because of the use of hardware… Well… It’s python again.
Let them write a short branching story using Ren’Py. It’s easy and will get them engaged. Go on and switch to Jupyter/Colab and do a bit of data scraping, data analysis/math or image filters. Basically introduce numpy, then pandas, then scipy, beautiful soup or openCV. Pure hard skills, that are applicable in many jobs. But realistically, due to time constraints in normal courses, all you want to do here, is numpy to get into it and automate math homework, followed by pandas, to load and automate excel files. And finally, let them do something with hardware, by programming a RP2040 in microPython. It’s not as widely adopted as the Arduino ecosystem, but it’s good enough for the simple stuff students will be able to learn, and you don’t have to introduce a completely different language.
My high school AP computer science course in the ealry aughts taught C first.
Without knowing anything about your students, it’s hard to say. If I were the student I’d much prefer to be taught C, but that’s because I have an existing interest in computers and a desire to develop systems programming skills. I wouldn’t like to teach JS to anyone because it’s a bad language and I don’t want students to go away making more web 3 slop but if they actively are interested in making web 3 slop that’d be a case for teaching JS. I’m of the pedagogical school of teaching students what they are actually interested in learning. They might not know enough about programming to know which language they want to learn off the bat, but maybe ask them what sort of software they’re interested in making. If they want to make websites, you might want to teach them something like Python with Flask, as something less bad than JS as well as easy enough to learn.
Imo C is a good teaching language as it teaches you a lot about how computers work, as well as the fact that nearly everything runs on C. It is “harder” though, and imo is also for students who are actually interested.
