When teaching young children, 'to ease students in' is a good idea. But for first-year college students, it's the worst thing you can do to them. The ones who c

When teaching young children, 'to ease students in' is a good idea. But for first-year college students, it's the worst thing you can do to them. The ones who chose the right course will be okay either way, but the ones who chose the wrong course won't get to find out until it's too late to switch, at least not without having wasted a nontrivial chunk of their lives. The overriding criterion for a first-year college programming language is to have a difficult learning curve to give students accurate information as early as possible about the nature of the subject they've signed up for.