C++ is even worse, especially if using iostreams as many beginner's tutorials do. I mean seriously, your introductory script requires polymorphic operator overloading to abuse a common operator (left shift) into doing something totally unnatural for its usual meaning? What the hell.

Any introduction to programming which requires hand-waviness is just teaching newcomers to not ask questions, which is terrible.

I'm assuming you don't have a choice in the language? I'd pick Python or something similar over Java for teaching coding.

The AP exam is in Java, so I could teach the beginners Python and then switch to Java for their second year. Many teachers do.

Introductory Java works for me, though.

It's too bad that the AP exam is so slow to update.

In the US, most universities still teach Java for their first programming course for CS majors. The AP exam has to match that.

Once most universities begin with Python, the AP exam will follow suit.

The majority of "top" computer science departments teach Python in their CS 101 equivalent.

http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/176450-python-is-now-the...

...but the vast majority of programs in the US teach Java or C++.

About 20k students take the AP Computer Science exam each year, split 14k for the A-level and 6k for the AB-level. I was going to make some argument that the AP students are all aiming for top schools, but the numbers seem to say otherwise. At least, 14k sounds like a lot.

Your data is super old; the AB-level exam was discontinued in 2009, and last year we had nearly 60,000 students that took the A exam.

But your point is therefore even more valid: not all of these students are going to be at top schools.

Wow, that is old. I looked up stats from the collegeboard website. I guess they haven't updated. Or maybe Google led me to an old page they haven't removed.

Ah, got it. I also took AP Computer Science—good memories!