Most computing teachers who have worked over these 20 years will tell you that C++ and Java are clearly harder for students to use than Pascal. Measuring that additional complexity is a significant challenge (see earlier blog posting on the challenge of assessing learning about programming). Part of the problem is syntactic. C++ and Java require more typing and have more syntactic rules than earlier intro languages (Pascal, and also Logo or even Basic). There's another level of complexity, though -- the model of computation that a language requires the programmer to use.Mark Guzdial's Amazon Blog: What is the role of language in learning programming? (Part 2 of "What makes programming so hard?") Permalink
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