I think that's taking it a bit far. I especially don't see how being explicit about the problem you're solving (teaching computer science to newcomers in a coll

I think that's taking it a bit far. I especially don't see how being explicit about the problem you're solving (teaching computer science to newcomers in a collegiate setting) and focusing the effort towards that problem and iterating on the methods used to teach it (building better tools and iterating without importing unnecessary baggage) is "actively harmful." Simply looking at text in a different language is not going to impart magical understanding. Things you haven't actually used in a non trivial program will seem complex at the beginning. And sure, you can rationalize that away by treating this like a special case, but it's just a general bias in our brains. And depending on your background, certain languages may seem more complex than others due to simply lack of exposure. I'd rather propose putting it up to a damn test. Compare the computer science knowledge of outgoing students to other students in similar circumstances who were taught using a practical, heavily-used-in-industry language. Use a short test maybe, along with interviews to get at qualitative unknowns. The results of that could then be used to pick the best strategy to teaching going forward. But also, in general, why not try to solve the problem better, without pre-supposing all the sunk costs and existing ideas? And not everything needs to be on the freaking altar of industry either. It's not like your college implementation of heap sort is gonna be mainlined in a company and used forever more. What're you optimizing, the couple of weeks it'd take for someone who already knows this to learn python? You already saved it probably by skipping the b.s. until it actually became relevant to learn about.