I'd say most people in computer science have a comprehensive understanding of data representations so they have knowledge of things like two's complement. I thi

I'd say most people in computer science have a comprehensive understanding of data representations so they have knowledge of things like two's complement. I think it's most important to start of explaining that verilog and vhdl are hardware descriptor languages not a programming language and get them to the point where they can visualize the actual logic being described. It's important to understand that registers can't just be thought of as a variable in the traditional sense despite looking like one at the syntax level; they're really a flip-flop that needs to be clocked. And that there is a critical delay path in the combinatorial logic that will dictate how fast your clock can be.