[IAEP] Which Language?

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> So I have a question for you folks. I am in discussion with a college CS prof who
> would like to teach beginning programming with XOs. He is interested in trying
> several different languages, but I am interested in pointing him toward the one 
> that would result in the most universally usable Activities with the idea that
> his students would be able to write Activities as class projects that could then
> be widely distributed. 
...
> So...the question is, what should I tell him?

At the moment, this is an easy question, and the answer is "Python".
Specifically, if his students write programs in Python, using only their
own code and the modules provided by Sugar, such as PyGTK, NumPy, Pygame,
dbus, gstreamer, and telepathy, then their programs will likely run on
every deployed version of Sugar.

There are other options, such as HTML+Javascript, Squeak, and C/C++, but
they each suffer from some combination of reduced functionality,
problematic cross-platform guarantees, and increased difficulty of
programming.

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