Best first language for high school students

AUGUST 2025

Every high school CS teacher I’ve met seems to pick one of two camps for Grade 11 and 12: Python or Java. (Okay, maybe C# if the computer lab can run VisualStudio 😅)

The reasoning is often the same:
- Python is “high-level” and “reads like English.”
- Java is “close to C” and forces students to think about data types, memory, and object-oriented programming.

But here’s the thing: if we’re chasing those ideals, why choose these languages?

If you love Python because it’s expressive and minimal, Haskell is the real mvp.

Let’s take factorial for a moment (“N factorial” is the product of all numbers between 1 and N inclusive). In python, unless we import prod from math we have to hand-roll our own raw for loop, which would look something like this:

def factorial(n: int) -> int:
    """Calculate n!, that is, n*(n-1)*...*2*1

    >>> factorial(5)
    120
    >>> factorial(10)
    362880
    """
    fact = 1
    for i in range(1, n+1):
        fact *= i
    return fact

In a language like Haskell, that I believe is a higher-level language than python, we would write the following

{- | Calculate n!, that is, n*(n-1)*...*2*1

>>> factorial 5
120
>>> factorial 10
362880
-}
factorial :: Int -> Int
factorial n = product [1..n]

That, I say, is essentially the dictionary definition of factorial. So, which one reads more like English?

On the flip side, if you’re in Camp Java because it “teaches fundamentals” and has C-style syntax, then why not… teach C? It’s a much smaller language, and it’ll make students think hard about memory, types, and foundational data structures. Then, when you actually need classes, virtual methods, or polymorphism you bring in C++ (perhaps with a small library to make functions that take iterators behave a little more like python).

Instead, we’ve picked the middle of the road for both philosophies. Python’s not the most high-level; Java’s not the leanest low-level. If our goal is to teach fundamentals and mental models, maybe we should be braver about the languages we choose to teach.

All of this being said, I, too, teach python in grade 11 and java in grade 12, but I wonder what the outcome would be if I taught a mix of FP and C!