Scheme has been taught to every student taking computer 'science' at MIT for the past 20 years, and it is increasingly used throughout the world to teach that subject. The mainstream languages C++ and Visual Basic are considered to be poorly designed, and C is too low level to be a good choice in a course intended to provide a comprehensive introduction to computer science (which goes far beyond what the average person calls 'programming').

Scheme is a variant of Lisp, which is the second oldest computer language, after Fortran. It is, however, a thoroughly modern language, and has strongly influenced the design of other modern languages like ML and Python.

The book starts in Scheme, then adds object oriented techniques and assembly language. It finishes with a transition to Java, which is, of course, similar to C++. This approach will provide a much broader background than a typical text using C++ or C could.