[eropple]

I'm sympathetic to this approach, though it's not necessarily the one I'd pick anymore. I think there's real value to understanding systems at this level, and I find that it informs my everyday work. I'm not sure, however, that it's necessarily the best way to get somebody engaged and interested. I'm sure there are personalities that dig this sort of thing (mine does) but loads of people I've worked with or taught seem to be most engaged by the fast iteration cycle of something like a REPL. Personally, that makes me lean towards teaching with Ruby or Python (probably Ruby, as I think it has more to teach). I guess it's horses-for-courses.