It was a long while ago now, if you had learnt anything before you got there it was pretty much guaranteed that you'd seen either BASIC or C. :)
The internet wasn't what it is now either so most people who had done some coding before were indeed lacking in understanding of the fundamental principles of what they were doing – I know I certainly was. There may have been outliers yet beyond the "I've been playing with code" crew but I didn't meet any.
I'm not at all suggesting it would be good reasoning today, but I think it helps to show that the underlying idea that FP is a good way to introduce people to code whilst ensuring they develop a strong theoretical understanding was true then and should still be today.
The internet wasn't what it is now either so most people who had done some coding before were indeed lacking in understanding of the fundamental principles of what they were doing – I know I certainly was. There may have been outliers yet beyond the "I've been playing with code" crew but I didn't meet any.
I'm not at all suggesting it would be good reasoning today, but I think it helps to show that the underlying idea that FP is a good way to introduce people to code whilst ensuring they develop a strong theoretical understanding was true then and should still be today.