Bulat Ziganshin discusses with SS:
SS> Types is a very important concept and I think that should be SS> emphasized in the first lecture. If one goes through types _and_ SS> values from the very beginning a strongly typed language will be of SS> the same aid to beginners as it is to experts.
imvho, exposing types to non-professionals is like exposing light theory to a kid which just want to draw a picture. values are just enough to these peoples
No, I am sorry, I disagree rather strongly. I taught programming to fresh undergraduates, and a little bit, occasionally to secondary school folk. We used Scheme. I taught also some programming to biology students, using Python. (Biology students are very resistant to all kind of mathe- matical reasoning...) So, as you see, we used dynamically typed languages. First bugs the students/pupils see, after having mastered the syntax are type errors. Presented as such. "sin expects a float". or " ... of type <number>". Hiding the typing at this level is a crime, it prevents them from understanding what is the essence of their bugs. I was OBLIGED to discuss types quite early, and everybody was satisfied. I am afraid that your claim is not based on experience. Jerzy Karczmarczuk