zlacker

I understand what you say, but i think you are wrong. Assembly is closest to what a cpu actually does for REAL, so you are programming. When using Python or whatever any advanced language, you are less programming CPU and more relying and tons of layers from other's works which are basically created to never let you understand how to program a CPU. So peoples feels they are programming, while they are just integrating tons of library and set them to do something usefull (which is good too).

But if you want to teach programming, i would follow my path, and provide a deeper understanding at how to control a cpu and how it really works. In order to demystify computer and gives student a real experience of all the hidden works that are done with a 4 lines python code.

and for the fun side, guess why assembly is the second searched language on Stack overflow during weekend : https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/02/07/what-programming-langu...

i guess people are trying to have more fun on weekend than on boring office project during work days :)

And those numbers show a real interest about Assembly which is usually greatly discarded in any common CS teaching anywere. So teachers decides it's not interesting, while in fact most peoples search about it on weekend...I mean it illustrates a real issue here. May be understanding how to program a cpu at low level is something natural, that only scholar peoples cannot understand, therefore neglecting natural tendency of normal peoples to try to understand how things really work...

And for those really wanting to even dig deeper and understand what is a CPU, i strongly suggest looking for "from nand to tetris" https://www.nand2tetris.org/ wich basically start at nand logical gate, to the extent to create a full working cpu and programming it to play tetris.

>>netmon+(OP)
You can always learn assembly language later. Putting it in the intro class is a bad idea.

>>SamRei+f
well can you develop a little bit your answer cause a one sentence opinion is just nothing.

>>netmon+(OP)
Students are taught to manipulate real numbers long before they're taught about Dedekind cuts or equivalence classes of Cauchy sequences.

For the purposes of teaching, the best approach is not always to start from the foundations and build upwards.