zrloopw

In my opinion schools should first teach a language with goto (Basic, C), so students understand how the machine works. Basic is perfect for children.

Once that is done, it makes more sense to move on to a functional language rather than an eclectic language like Python, which is mostly a collection of features that somewhat work in practice for system administration or scientific one-page scripts.

There is no deeper understanding of CS to be gained from learning Python. To the contrary, it will ruin future programmers.

McCarthy himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-expression

The project of defining M-expressions precisely and compiling them or at least translating them into S-expressions was neither finalized nor explicitly abandoned. It just receded into the indefinite future, and a new generation of programmers appeared who preferred internal notation to any FORTRAN-like or ALGOL-like notation that could be devised.