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A comment on Functional programming is not popular because it is weird (2016). Parent comment

Re:Functional programming is not popular because it is weird... by dijksterhuis on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @03:21AM (#28521415)
It can also be due to tooling -- once a student has got the python binary installed you can get them writing and running code without having to make sure they have the correct version of x, y, z (don't even need conda or pip) or teaching them what a compiler is etc.

Javascript is quite popular as an introductory language too -- students can open up a web browser and type stuff in the console in the middle of a lecture.

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Re:Functional programming is not popular because it is weird... by Qem on Wednesday September 15, 2021 @10:02AM (#28539147)
I agree. It even features a basic IDE, IDLE, as part of the default install. No need to figure out how to configure your text editor to interact with the Python shell. I remember trying to learn Ruby before Python, several years ago, but then got stuck trying to configure Geany to work with Ruby.
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