Thank you for this detailed response! I think that is a very thorough and well-thought out concept. > Do not introduce functions yet. For some reason I cannot

Thank you for this detailed response! I think that is a very thorough and well-thought out concept. > Do not introduce functions yet. For some reason I cannot fathom, even some quite advanced scientists seem to hate functions, to the benefit of really long scripts. They'll need to learn it eventually, but no need to put them off. Yes, I have observed that myself... I really don't understand that - functions would make so many things so much easier. Plus, for many students, some of their biggest comprehension problems can be traced back to an incomplete understanding of functions. (Especially the simple fact that builtin system "commands" are nothing but pre-written functions...) [Having said that, I ought to add the disclaimer that I cut my programming teeth on Lisp and Python, so I think very heavily in terms of functions.) > not include too many packages/APIs/problem definitions at once Good point ;-) I have seen that too in some courses.