>>I just finished the "Rise and Resurection of the American Programmer"
>>and in it Ed Yourdon asks a very good question: If you child wanted to get into computers now what language would you suggest?
>>
>>Would it be FoxPro?
>
>I hate to say it, but probably BASIC. That's what I learned with. I disagree with the HTML, DHTML suggestions, they aren't really programming languages, but one is a simple markup language, and DHTML is merely an object model. To learn programming, you need to learn data types, constructs, loops, procedures, reuse, etc. I don't think you would learn any of that with HTML.

I think some of us are picturing the "child" at different ages. I'm thinking of maybe 10 or so, and using the web a lot. Others, recommending C++, for example, are clearly not picturing the same "child" < s >