I actually think the curriculum works directly against this. I know my homework assignments tended to be much more unmaintainable than even a one-off python scr

I actually think the curriculum works directly against this. I know my homework assignments tended to be much more unmaintainable than even a one-off python script that I would hack together. It might be interesting to design a class where, instead of weekly homework, students are required to continually maintain/modify the same source over a semester. Weekly projects that will never be touched again actively discourage writing maintainable code, and I don't think that is a good lesson to be teaching.