Well said! Understanding the machine, while useful, does not usually help you solve the problem at hand. A better approach is to teach how to create models, men

Well said! Understanding the machine, while useful, does not usually help you solve the problem at hand. A better approach is to teach how to create models, mental and the ones on the computer(datastructures, types etc), and show how that maps to problems at hand. Teaching how to verify models for rigor, efficiency(algorithmic), taste for elegance , and help seeing that computer science is not all that different from math, is what helps you build structures that stand the test of time.