> What has that taught anyone? Merely syntax. That is a completely backwards way at looking at learning to code. Sure you can boil down trivial examples to ma

> What has that taught anyone? Merely syntax. That is a completely backwards way at looking at learning to code. Sure you can boil down trivial examples to make the process one of learning syntax, but the moment you do anything of your own design you begin learning the fundamentals of computer science. They may not be able to explain to you how sorting works, or many other minute details, but they will probably be able to tell you how they were able to get pressing the screen to result in the character moving up. After that they will realize the character can't move up forever, so what should happen when it reaches the top? etc. etc. Simple but non-trivial things are exactly what is needed to get someone to dip their toe in computer science, and will certainly work as a stepping stone to more formal processes later. Pretending that one liners aren't valuable so by extension small programs aren't valuable is asinine. If you want to point out specific examples then feel free, but this abstract focus at the start just makes you seem like you are focusing on things they shouldn't care about. As another note, sorting numbers 9/10 is a solved and thus uninteresting problem, don't ever make someone do it until they know a ton about computers.