I agree with this sentiment. In my experience, it's hard enough for a novice to learn to reason through basic control flow (loops, functions, variable assignmen

I agree with this sentiment. In my experience, it's hard enough for a novice to learn to reason through basic control flow (loops, functions, variable assignment). Over a few years of working as a teaching assistant, I saw two types of students: those that had some prior knowledge and effortlessly picked up the concepts, and first-timers that had to put in serious effort to stay afloat. If you were in the former camp, it's hard to envision how the latter might feel, and why every bit of additional complexity is a menace to someone who's already struggling with frustration over internalizing the basics. If you add too much complexity, the novice becomes discouraged, gives up trying to understand, and simply tries to memorize - this is always catastrophic for them. As an example, I'm taking about students that write code like: if(x == true){ y = true } else if (x == false){ y = false }