> I can't help but feel like this article is less a condemnation of IDEs in introductory teaching and more a condemnation of java in introductory teaching.
It is both, but I started with the IDEs because they are the chicken of this chicken and egg problem. Java is too complex, so schools reach for IDEs, which just makes things more complicated, et cetera.
If a standard development environment could be devised that hides the incidental complexity of Java without hiding the essential complexity of file systems, etc., I think it would solve the problem just as well as teaching Python.
It is both, but I started with the IDEs because they are the chicken of this chicken and egg problem. Java is too complex, so schools reach for IDEs, which just makes things more complicated, et cetera.
If a standard development environment could be devised that hides the incidental complexity of Java without hiding the essential complexity of file systems, etc., I think it would solve the problem just as well as teaching Python.