[devrelm]

Perhaps, but while programming may be only 20% of CS, learning it probably takes up 80% of a student's time. Reducing that additional cognitive load during the first couple semesters could allow them to focus on other CS fundamentals and improve overall comprehension over the course of their degree.

[Jtsummers]

And I honestly can't recall a single CS course where I didn't write an executable program after my first (CS 1301 at GT circa 2000, done using a pseudo-code language based on Pascal). Even my theory classes, I used programming to express/analyze the material discussed in class.