The One-language-per-year Challenge

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Roger

So I guess APL is totally out of the question, huh?

Seriously, APL should be taught first, then when they are totally lost, tell them you'll give them something simpler, like C. I'm sure there's a Sheldon Cooper quote in there somewhere.

I have found that nothing makes a programmer learn the value of a QWERTY keyboard faster than a wire-wrap tool:
http://www.homebrewcpu.com/Pictures/..._wrap_side.jpg

For those studying the electronics they'll never forget the real value of a netlist after that.

Extra points if you can wire-wrap a whole cRIO from CMOS chips.

No seriously, though, part of the pain of building these robots at all is that often times the core concepts and subtle core things you must do to get anything done is still sometimes a matter of imagination. Let alone twisting that into something unique and reliably functional.

One should not loose sight of what it was like to learn when first you had to build the computer. Disputes about the 'best' language for something tend to start to look like a luxury.