Whatever Happened to Richard Reid's List of First Programming Languages?

• Published in: Information systems education journal Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 24 - 30
• Main Authors: Siegfried, Robert M, Greco, Daniel M, Miceli, Nicholas G, Siegfried, Jason P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Information Systems and Computing Academic Professionals 01.08.2012
• Subjects: Check Lists; College Programs; Computer Science Education; Educational Practices; Incidence; Information Systems; Introductory Courses; Programming Languages; Qualitative Research; Teacher Surveys; Trend Analysis; Michigan
• ISSN: 1545-679X

Throughout the 1990s, Richard Reid of Michigan State University maintained a list showing the first programming language used in introductory programming courses taken by computer science and information systems majors; it was updated for several years afterwards by Frances Van Scoy of West Virginia University. However, it has been 5 years since the last Reid List was released. An updated list was compiled revealing the most popular programming languages. The resultant correspondence with faculty members at many of the 410 Reid List colleges and universities indicates several trends, some of which are contradictory, as well as the reasons for the language choices of the participating schools. We present several conclusions from our findings.