Re: Is there any correlation between "popularity" and
As it's a computer science course, the actual implementation language used should have no bearing on the overall objectives.
Sorta.
I suggest reading Joel On Software: The Perils of JavaSchools. It is even more valid for Javascript. There are concepts which you simply cannot teach in either language - they do not exist.
Now, a lot of this material is not taught in "Intro to Comp Sci" nowdays (again - probably a mistake, in my days they hit you on the head with linked lists around the middle of the first semester). So in theory you can teach intro in a language which offers a reduced set of concepts - Java, JavaScript, etc. This, however, means that before teaching any of the really deep stuff which separates your average 25£ per hour webmonger from a software engineer you need to teach one more language. All of your recruits arriving at "Boot Camp Data Structures and Algorithms" will need to be retrained first. IMHO that's a waste - it would have been better to use a language which has most concepts in the first place. In fact, python is more suitable than either Java or JavaScript - it is cleaner syntactically and semantically while still giving access to all key concepts needed to teach CS.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
