I teach R, and most of the students have never programmed before, at least not anything other than having been exposed to a configuration file or writing a litt

I teach R, and most of the students have never programmed before, at least not anything other than having been exposed to a configuration file or writing a little html. x = x+1 is really confusing because of the way kids learn math. The notation x <- x+1 at least conveys the idea of taking a value and storing it somewhere.