> Because simply, I couldn't appreciate functional programming until I > did a fair bit of imperative programming first.
As did I, but for a different reason... the end of a long stretch of torture. Seriously though, I'm probably like many programmers (at least in the states) in that my first experience started at home plucking away on my old Commodore 64. However, by first language outside of BASIC was Lisp in undergrad and I have to say that it was a great start. In many ways I think it's better for the neophyte programmer to think algorithmically and use a language that closely models that thought process. To me, Lisp/Scheme/Clojure fits that model and so I would without hesitation recommend Clojure as a starting point. Don't get me wrong, I think learning C (it was my 3rd language) is likewise important, but it's heavy in incidental complexities that just muddle the problem at hand and probably not good as a start. New programmers need to solve as many problems as they can as soon as they can -- Lispy languages let them solve the *actual* problems and C-like languages force them to solve the actual problems *plus* a whole bunch of ancillary problems. -m -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en