[alew1]

For our first semester, we use a modified version of "How to Design Programs": http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/ Highly recommended for teaching! I do teach pointers, but in stages — so that students can understand the mutability behavior of Python lists and other objects, we talk about how a Python list variable, for instance, is _really_ storing a memory address of a list. When we move to Go, they actually use pointers, but unlike C's, it's hard to shoot yourself in the foot with Go's pointers. When we finally get to C, pointers seem natural.