In school we were programming in Turbo-Pascal, so I had some exposure and then took a week-long Unix evening course at my university's computer center. So that

In school we were programming in Turbo-Pascal, so I had some exposure and then took a week-long Unix evening course at my university's computer center. So that was helpful. But you are right, for someone who hasn't done much hands-on computering a semester-long introductory lab to get everyone to the same speed. My undergraduate advisor said since the second-semester lab was the basic lab, the first-semester lab had to be the basement lab.