The reason I recommended processing was the ease of use. C++ is a lot to take in as a first language and requires a lot of work to get any satisfying output. Having to learn pointers and memory management would be a daunting task for anyone learning the basics of coding.
With processing, one line of hand written code will have you drawing on a canvas with your mouse…it is really rewarding, easy to pick up and encourages people to go off and learn more about coding.
This isn’t really a thread to argue which language is the most popular etc… but the fact is that Java is still top of the charts in popularity, has been for a while and hundreds of thousands of businesses rely on it. It’s not going to disappear any time soon.