Instead, the first language should be one that lends itself to studying the large issues, by imposing as few low-level details as possible. But this will be a very hard sell. Logo versus Visual Programming A new contender among programming languages is the category of visual or iconic languages. One way to look at those old arguments is to imagine a continuum. In this model, Logo occupies a middle position, trying to provide both easy access for beginners and enough control mechanisms to grow with the learner.
Visual programming is a tremendously appealing idea.
In fact this needn't be an either-or choice. Some elements of visual programming have found their way into recent dialects of Logo. LogoWriter on the Macintosh has immediate-mode controls for the turtle heading and position. The new Microworlds version extends the visual appeal with easy access to parallelism. George Mills, at the Digital Equipment Corporation, has embedded my Berkeley Logo interpreter in a graphical interface under Microsoft Windows, thereby creating a language with the flavor of Visual Basic but with the power of Logo inside it.