This is how I always knew it. Let's say you have 6 candies to divide by 3 people, well, each person gets 2 candies.

But if you have 6 candies to divide by 0 people, well, that can't be done. It's not 0 candies for each person, because there are no people to give candies, so it's just impossible.

Oh DJ_O, unintentionally putting dirty references everywhere.

Oh Juju, unintentionally saying "unintentionally", when in fact we have no idea of what intentions DJ O had...

@Ephan:

If how quickly a language changes is relevant to a beginner, then the language is either far too new to be used by a beginner or they're in the wrong section of the tutorial book. And the problem is less that proprietary languages change less frequently and more that a good language *shouldn't* be changing much in the first place.

As for the Goto argument, it's silly to pick a language based on the fact that it chooses to restrict you by omitting the Goto statement. Python can get away with not including it because it works in a domain where it's not entirely necessary. C on the other hand can't eliminate it. The same thing applies to the argument that Goto leads to unreadable code. It's undeniably true that improper use of Goto will probably result in that. However, I've yet to see a single language where it's impossible to write bad code if you try hard enough. The key is just learning how to design good code, which solves the Goto problem as well.

Personally, I would recommend an useless language like TI-BASIC, JustBASIC, or Matlab. Why a useless language? Because you can't learn everything there is to know about programming having learned only one language. One problem I've seen is that people who learn a useful language first have a tendency to try to apply that language everywhere, even in places it doesn't belong. A useless language forces you to move outside it while making learning that second language significantly easier.

There are downsides on my arguments against starting with a .NET language, but I think all of them together proof that there are better alternatives, and I'm sure you agree.

I also don't recommend any language with forced classes/functions like C# or Java. When I started Java and C# (happened with both) I was confused as to why I needed so many lines to print "Hello World", and what did "class HelloWorld", and "public static void main (String[] args)" was all for.

Python and Ruby are better in this aspect because they offer one-line methods for Hello World, and very small solutions for the first problems.

Also, I do know it's possible to write good Goto code, but that is if you have a teacher. Many people just learn programming by their own, and there's nobody there to tell them "Be careful." I'm trying to think about everyone.

Either way, your "useless language" point is very good, had never heard it and it seems quite good. A useless language should be good, but it can also be bad. I'm glad I learned Python first, because I can use it nowadays too, and I have lots of experience with it.

Ouch, I would not recommend Visual Basic not any beginner or any programmer at all.

Firstly, it is not open source, and open source languages evolve much faster, besides the fact that you can tinker with them.
Secondly, it runs on the .NET Framework, which is Windows-only (yes, there's Mono, but it's not so good), and making developers start fresh with developing Windows-only programs is bad.
Thirdly, it has labels/gotos, which make it really (really, really, I know a guy who couldn't learn Python after VB because he missed Goto, he just couldn't do anything without Goto). And goto is bad because it may lead to very hard to read code.
Finally, Visual Basic is way too attached to a certain IDE (Visual Studio). You can program without it, but it is better used with it. This is really bad, because programmers should know how to program with a text editor + compiler too.
Oh, and the IDE doesn't work on other operating systems too, programmers should be taught cross-platform is cool from the start.

I recommend Python or Ruby, because they are both interpreted languages, and easy to understand for beginners.

Everything went fine, why would you not want a boot menu? I think you just messed it afterwards...

Bump?

press backspace when you are in the input bar and next to the f(x)=  in graphs and it will give you a list of options.

That only allows me to do stuff like y > 2. If I change the Y to an X, I get an Invalid Syntax error.