[nomel]

> would make sense to do the first assignment with low-level tool

Sure, but if the goal is to teach programming, I think vim massively confuses a beginner. vim is hard for beginners, famously so. Something like VSCode, used as a remote text editor, is trivial and familiar to anyone who has used at MS Word. I agree it should be introduced, but there's definitely some cargo cult around vim and "the old ways".

[walleeee]

Idk, if we're working on a remote machine already, it's not the student's first day. The bar to basic editing with vim is pretty low. Mode switch with i and esc, :x to save/exit, navigate where your fingers already are, slash to find. That all fits on a sticky note if it isn't already memorized in the first 30 seconds. They've likely played video games their whole lives, I struggle to see how mapping buttons to behaviors is a foreign or difficult concept.

As you say we're teaching programming. The ability to pick up an unfamiliar tool and get to know it on the fly is critical and the only way to develop it is practice.

That said, maybe there is no right answer here. I imagine the instructor's broader approach will make the difference, not which editor they make the class use for assignment three :)