"Know your users, for they are not you"

~Human-Computer interaction (HCI) principle

It seems almost weekly, I receive some sort of "top programming languages to learn" link, and it's not unusual to have students and parents ask me what I recommend next after each class I teach. Which is interesting, because I intentionally do not teach programming classes with a specific language in mind. And this cool ACM blog post nicely sums up why I do this; because I want to move beyond "Can I learn this?" to "Do I want to learn this? Is it worth it?" thinking. In my professional world, asking the latter questions are far more important than accumulating programming languages to list on a resume. "Community of practice" is critical, and it's this "community" and all the soft skills that come with this approach rather than mastery of a specific language I value as a teacher teaching K-5 programming. Down the road, it helps kids figure out programming language usability so that they spend their learning time wisely.