> It's like teaching someone calculus when they haven't even learned algebra yet. Start with the basics and then build up from there.

I mostly agree in principle with the idea of building up a foundation. Going right into the deep end without decent guidance may leave one with horrible heuristics.

However, (IMO) a crawl->walk->run abstraction does not always work well. I hate to say "it's case by case," but pedagogy is not easy. Algebra, IMO, should be taught either near or with its uses (modern calculus being one of them). Otherwise, one may be learning a bunch of abstract concepts without much reification.