I'm not sure whether or not the article had a point, or was just a space filler.
To me, learning usually requires work. If someone is motivated enough to learn something, then, usually he can find a way to do it.
On the other hand, if a person demands that all learning be entertaining and require no work, then, who can help him?
Some first graders can probably begin using Haskell. Some eighth graders will have difficulty with Basic.
That's why students are separated according to their abilities.
If you require that there be one language that every child is capable of using, then, that language will be very simple.
So, in a way it doesn't make sense to assume that there should be just one standard language which is taught to all school children.
No one I know of demands that there be one math curriculum taught to all school children. The curricula diverge almost immediately according to talent and motivation.
Why should the situation be different with respect to computer programming?
On the other hand, I do see the current fascination with Python, as mostly a fad - a manifestation of the herd mentality.
Previously the fad was for Java, and before that for C++.
Who can show that Python is objectively better than Java, or that Java is objectively better than C++.
To me, if a language is Turing Complete (link), then asking which language is better, is like asking which color is better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
On the internet, you learn that people will argue about anything and everything, and it seems especially about programming languages. Apparently, to me, some people would marry their particular favorite programming language if they could. Other languages they avoid like HIV. And then there are also the people who realize that, there is a difference between virtual reality and real life.
(I do see the fact that computers no longer include any programming environment at all (I think they should include a complete environment for some relatively easy language, including all of the documentation.), as an obstacle to children who want to learn computer programming by themselves. And, this obstacle will loom largest (like almost all of life's obstacles), for poor children. Of course, if all children had equal access to education, then, the upper class could not maintain its advantage over the masses of peasants, serfs, slaves - and who would ever want that?!)
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