[bachmeier]

> it's nice to avoid burdening beginners with extra syntax when they're already struggling to learn other things

As someone that teaches college students to program (not in a CS department) that statement is correct but doesn't provide the full picture. It's good to get rid of the extra syntax if and only if you don't need it - and that means you're intentionally limiting what you're teaching them.

[extra88]

> you're intentionally limiting what you're teaching them

Yes, that’s the point. It’s an introductory class, choices have to be made about what to teach when.

[bachmeier]

Well, of course, but the point is that avoiding syntax is not a great criterion for defining the fundamentals of programming. A couple orders of magnitude more important is to decide what concepts are useful for beginning programmers to know.

[afiori]

I took it as "removing syntax left more space for other stuff"