[mhd]

I think the choice of first language really says a lot about the whole program. More so today than yesteryear, where there was a larger contigent of people with prior exposure to programming.

Do you start more abstract, and if so with functional, imperative or OO underpinnings? Do you intend to switch languages rather soon or later?

The good thing about Oberon, language set aside, is that you could get started without a lot of adminstrative debris. No 80% of the screen covered in an IDE, not even a big ol' "public static void main" that you're told to gloss over.

I can see good arguments for sticking to one language throughout many courses, too. Sadly that often means C++.