> The idea was roundly shot down, with the central claim being that students picked all of this up as they went along, and that the journey was more important t

> The idea was roundly shot down, with the central claim being that students picked all of this up as they went along, and that the journey was more important than the outcome. That's such a bad position for educators to take! Just picking things up as you go along, you only learn how to accomplish tasks by rote, and you can find yourself 35 years in and still be patching basic holes in your knowledge (ask me how I know this). If you're self-motivated to dive in and teach yourself the theory, you can do that. But if you are that guy, you probably aren't taking CS courses at a university in the first place.