I'm an advocate of assembly language on microcontrollers being an introduction to programming. PICs are great because they are cheap, basic tooling is cheap, and the instruction set is small.
It gives a student a period of getting familiar with computers as machines, rather than brands or software stacks. Plenty of time in the rest of your life for that.
> I'm an advocate of assembly language on microcontrollers being an introduction to programming.
I wish more people had this insight. My understanding of computers blossomed once I found Core Wars back in the day. Curricula like "NAND to Tetris" are probably the way to go when it comes to giving students insights to avoid "black box thinking."
It gives a student a period of getting familiar with computers as machines, rather than brands or software stacks. Plenty of time in the rest of your life for that.