Originally Posted by chay
Each language has it's own quirks and tricks but for kids starting out it is about learning the concepts of if statements, case statements, goto, repeat, for loop, etc. Those are the basic building blocks for everything else.
Some people, most famously Edsger Dijkstra in "How do we tell truths that might hurt?", have asserted that learning a language with "bad" features, such as goto in Basic, teaches bad habits. I don't agree but wonder if the assertion could be tested.