As a university-level CS educator, the issue of which programming language to teach in the first programming course often comes up for discussion. There are thousands of languages to choose between, and lots of religious fever (or fevour) supporting one language camp over another. All of this subjective bias surrounding each programming language makes it very difficult for an educator to choose one.My question is: What objective criteria can an educator use to select a programming language to use as the basis for a first year university programming course? What is the basis for these criteria?Note: I do not want to see a list of programming languages and why they are the best one to use. The question isn't about the best language, it is about the criteria for selecting a language. Answers may however be use programming languages to illustrate particular points.This question was inspired by another question which was deemed off-topic: https://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/1946/criteria-for-choosing-a-first-programming-language. 
Criteria for selecting language for first programming course
programming languages;education