>I've taken this course myself, and I would argue that this measured approach to learning C is far superior to throwing students (most of whom have no low-level programming experience) straight into C.

Sure, I'd love to read this argument. I taught myself to program, started with python, then learned C. The hurdle of learning how memory is mapped, the knowledge/understanding gained by being required to clean up after yourself when you do *alloc. That's what makes learning C helpful. Perhaps I gave up reading the introduction to soon, but honestly, after I read it adds in GC to C.... I had the same reaction everyone else has already voiced. "Why use C here?" There's many other better languages if your just adding in hand holding.

Finally, if grading assignments was one of the defining reasons for inventing a new language, you need to take a step back from the text editor, and ask... "How did I get here?"