There are many useful and interesting computer languages out there, any of which might be a good place to start scientific programming. More traditional choices include FORTRAN, which is quite an old language that was originally primitive, but has grown up some, and C, a quite useful language to learn. Recently, people have been using C++ for scientific programming and sometimes Java for teaching. These latter two languages are very good to know, but are not the easiest place to start. Most people do not learn python initially or use it for scientific programming.

Yet, I have chosen python. I think this makes sense for the following reasons:

1. It is easy to learn to write powerful code quickly, due to the simplicity of the syntax, the lack of strict data types, and the variety of available standard modules that do a lot of the work for you. It is a very "high-level" language, so you don't get bogged down in details.
2. For mechanics in particular, available modules include Visual, a package written for visualizing physical problems easily in three dimensions.
3. Python is FREE, so you can all install it on your Windows or Linux system, share with your friends, whatever.
4. Python is "object-oriented" from the ground up. This teaches some good, modern programming techniques from the start.
5. Python is in common use as a utility language for computer systems, so it is not a bad language to know for managing a system.

1. You will not learn about the data types and declaration of variables that are important in languages like C, FORTRAN, or C++.
2. Because of the lack of strong data types, large python codes are potentially more prone to errors.
3. As the community of python programmers is not as large as C or C++ programmers, there is less support for python users. (But less is needed to start.)
4. Python is not the most efficient language on this planet. For our use, that doesn't matter much and python can be extended with C modules, making it very fast, if you put in the extra effort.

After a while, we will start using MATLAB to analyze and display data, as well.