I teach Java to first-semester students and I tried a couple of times to switch to another language because I think it’s not a good language to start with and because the students don’t like it either. However, the business (and we are a private university driven by businesses sending students) builds on two primary technologies: Java and COBOL. So even if I did teach another language, I would fail to prepare them for their careers in engineering.

What I do instead, though, talk about the architecture and backgrounds, show different ways and let them make the mistakes that help learn to solve problems.