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A comment on John Resig: JavaScript as a First Language. Parent comment

Re:John Resig: JavaScript as a First Language by asktell on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @02:45PM (#3378809)
Every language has its gotchas. Even assignment operators are kind of a gotcha.

If you're coming from a basic math background, and have no programming experience, then the expression "a = 15; a = a + 1;" would be confusing in any mutable language, because assigning a value to a variable is not equivalent to stating the equality (identity) of both sides.

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Re:John Resig: JavaScript as a First Language by brlewis on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @03:55PM (#3379097)
You're right in that even Scheme, which evolved with teaching in mind, has gotchas. However, the Racket folks made "student languages" that specifically exclude gotchas, so DrRacket is as close as a student can get to a gotcha-free environment.
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