If you think Perl is too difficult to teach kids, then you are either underestimating their power to learn, or you are overestimating how difficult Perl is compared to BASIC. Here's a classic:

print "What is your name?\n";

$name = <>;

print "Hello $name, have a nice day.\n";
[download]

Come on, is that really that much tougher? You don't have to teach them structured, OO-based programming from the get go.

Besides, how many languages have a "spaceship operator"?

Pascal, in my opinion, is harder to learn than Perl, and yet Pascal is promoted as a "learning tool". Go figure.

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