[brownbat]

I wrote my compiler in Python, and I know perfectly well what a compiler does.

It slows down development. :)

Pointer math and garbage collection are lessons better taught in C++, lessons about the stack make more sense in assembly, and it probably helps to learn about high level design patterns using a simple syntax (like Ruby or Python). Lisp, so I hear, teaches you pure enlightenment. We can play this game with any language we like.

Java, for its part, taught me a lot about installing a massive IDE and scouring pre-existing libraries full of absurd design decisions with nominal documentation. (To be fair, this is probably an enormously important lesson for working on large projects.)

Despite the fact none of these languages hits all of these notes, if we had to choose one, Java would be last on my list. Because in Java, there's a risk that you will never learn the most important thing about coding: that it can actually be fun.

http://xkcd.com/353/