[blah32497]

I think it's important to hit the ground running using the best tools available.

"Students should learn what those components do from scratch"

Yeah, they will eventually. When they take a compilers class, they'll understand how the compiler works. It's okay to have that be "magic" in the mean time. They should be focusing on learning about OO principles, and data structures, and algorithms and not futzing with command line tools.