Agree, Racket was my first PL (well, it was Scheme back then) and in hindsight it was incredibly refreshing to not have to fight the computer to get my program to work. No syntax errors (no real syntax to speak of), no gotchas, no UB, no integer overflow... the list goes on. It gives you the opportunity to sit back and just think through your algorithms, which is what I think beginners would most benefit from.