The first course of programming: Python, Matlab, or C?

Abstract

Which programming language should we teach in the first course of programming to our undergraduate students of engineering? Most entering freshmen have no programming experience. We have to teach them the first steps of programming and swiftly bringing them to a level of skill, where they can use computing in their other courses: to analyze data for lab reports, to learn linear algebra, to solve problems in mechanics, problems involving differential equations, and writing a program to control a robot (embedded programming). In this paper based on the data collected from three programming courses (CS10, CS12, and CS20), we evaluate and recommend a programming language for the first course of programming to our undergraduate engineering students. Python, C, and assembly languages are considered in this analysis. We also emphasis the importance of Malab for the senior engineering courses.