[svat]

Haskell was the first programming language taught at our college when I was a student, where some of the students hadn't even used a computer before. It went fine. (I think it was actually better than other languages would have been, as many of the students had a background in mathematics and might have been confused by things like "x = x + 1", while they were comfortable with the idea of a function, at least as used in mathematics.)

If you'd like to see for yourself what that course was like, here are lecture notes (and assignments, and mid-term exam): https://www.cmi.ac.in/~madhavan/courses/programming08/index....

[gnufx]

Right. Long ago a group of Oxford physicists with no computing experience were baffled by "LET X=X+1", which the demonstrator failed to explain in terms of a storage model.

Orwell (Haskell predecessor) was used later at Oxford, and I think ML at the other university. "Preparing to study Computer Science at Cambridge" once said "Teaching yourself to program can lead to your picking up bad habits that will hinder your progress later. In particular, you should avoid languages like C++."