Removing the fear factor in Programming

This paper describes a new course introduced at Republic Polytechnic (RP) in 2009, called úIntroduction to Programming ù. The course is intended as a first course in programming and python was chosen as the programming language after serious consideration. One of the reasons was it's simplicity which makes it an excellent candidate for an introductory level programming module for those with little/no prior programming background. In addition, there are only a very few unexplainable concepts in Python and it provides immediate feedback, which is a huge plus to keep the novice programmers interested. Amidst all this, the language and it's environment still holds useful for practical programming tasks. The course was designed in such a way that it would make it less intimidating and more engaging for the young learners