I suppose IDEs can be a good productivity tool, but they seem to be a poor teaching tool in a university setting. It's difficult to learn how to drive a car by

I suppose IDEs can be a good productivity tool, but they seem to be a poor teaching tool in a university setting. It's difficult to learn how to drive a car by peering through the smoked glass at the chauffeur. For first-year classes, I suggest restricting lectures to concepts (linked lists, big-O notation, and so forth) and not coding. Let students learn coding by themselves, by reading an assigned textbook on the language of choice, supplemented by a few one-page handouts on linux, vim/emacs, version control, etc. Assignments should involve both writing short essays about concepts and writing code. The latter should be expected to work, to be well-documented and, as the class progresses, to be elegant. In mid-term and final examinations, students should expected to again write essays and code, but this time by hand, on paper, and in a room without computers, books, cell phones, etc. The goal, it seems to me, is to expose students to fundamental concepts and give them the skills to learn more by themselves. The use of IDEs can come up later, as they start working on larger projects.