Comment by eichin

Hmm, can't find the paper (mostly clutter from language bootcamp results) but around a decade or so back there was an education research project that concluded that teaching SQL first, rather than any imperative language (regardless of punctuation), was better for getting students to develop reasonable mental models for computing. (Unfortunately without the reference I can't address what the criteria for "better" were - but "what people get paid to do" isn't really proof of comfort at any level...)