And it has the added benefit of forcing thinking before executing. Along with a potentially very forgiving "compiler". In college at GT prior to 2002 (2003?) the intro class was taught using a pascal based pseudocode. The TAs grading it were necessarily lenient on issues of syntax and the students could focus on the semantics of the program. Need a function that interacts with the outside world (reads a character, draws a figure to a screen, whatever)? Just say that's what it does and it does it.
This leaves the student with a solid understanding of algorithms and data structures, and in the follow-on courses they can worry about stricter syntax (language and APIs).
This leaves the student with a solid understanding of algorithms and data structures, and in the follow-on courses they can worry about stricter syntax (language and APIs).