[diminishedprime]

I might be in the minority here, but "fighting unfamiliar syntax" seems like a lazy argument to me. I've played around with many languages, and after getting used to the first non-c family syntax (in my case, Scheme) it never bothered me anymore. There are valuable lessons I've learned from other languages and I don't think I could have learned them if I would have stayed in the language I was comfortable in at the time. It's much more difficult (in my mind) to try novelty when you have ingrained habits already.

[Qwertystop]

I'm not so sure. I started (technically) with C++ and Java in miscellaneous summer camps and an independent-study highschool class, but my first serious course in a language (instead of just toy problems + messing around) was in Racket... I got the hang of it during the class, but I couldn't hold onto it the way C-family syntax just stuck, and when I last tried to pick up something Lisp-family a few months ago (Common Lisp) it was like I'd never seen Racket.

Unless that actually is "ingrained habits," I suppose, but in that case I had the habits before I ever hit college or knew that other syntaxes existed.

[the_af]

Indeed. Syntax is not an issue beyond your first exposure to a non-C family syntax language (and come to think of it, I learned programming with Basic, so I'm not even sure the C-like syntax thing even applies in the first place).