What I'm discovering is that a functional language like Elm is fairly natural to him and he's learning quickly!
This is something I've wondered about a lot and is very interesting to hear actual results on (despite it just being in regards to one student) Despite the connections often drawn between programming and mathematics, imperative programming requires a fairly different model of thinking than most mathematics I'd argue, so I've always believed that if properly presented, functional programming would be simpler to pick up and possibly even lead to more understandable code down the line even when working in imperative languages. Of course, the mathematical density of Haskell concepts themselves is a problem, but it's interesting to hear how easily your student has picked up a "beginner-focused" functional language like Elm as opposed to other "easy languages" that are more imperative. Ashlynn