Here is an interesting thread in the PLT discussion archive discussing the want of beginning programmers only to learn things that are clearly useful!
(surely via the PLT Discussion list, but I can’t recall or find it…)
A comment by Matthais on the nature of the first three HtDP languages:
HtDP’s first three teaching languages are basically mathematics, ignoring the parentheses. We use
— arithmetic, for many different forms of data
— algebra, for (potentially conditional) function definitions
— pre-calculus, for induction and [...]
The First Year? It’s not Scheme.
Matthias Felleisen talks here about his teams approach to first-year courses on programming and computing.
Here is a presentation on the approach. Be sure to read it as there are a lot of interesting bits in there.
(via PLT)
The Scheme Programming Language Third Edition by R. Kent Dybvig
How to Design Programs by Matthias Felleisen, Robert Bruce Findler, Matthew Flatt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman with Julie Sussman
Addendum 6/26/8:
The difference between learning a programming language and learning how to program is now clear enough [...]