[AnimalMuppet]

> Java is a small language with not many concepts

True. But you need to know too many of them to get anything to run.

> that is typed so many of your first attempts will be caught with helpful messages at compile time

But it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel "helpful", it feels nitpicky. It feels like I have to get everything exactly right before anything will run. For a raw beginner, that's very frustrating. It is (emotionally) better to have something run as far as it can run, and then crash. (I agree that exceptions pointing to the line number are very nice.)

Again, for a semester class, the startup overhead for learning Java is too small to worry about - it's maybe a day or two. But for someone on their own, not in a class, a day or two is a huge investment to put in before they can get something running!

What would I start with? Something with a REPL. (It could be a language that is normally compiled, but there needs to be a REPL. Raw beginners need to be able to get something, anything, to work as quickly as possible.)