yeah, i now spend 2 days/week in an AP CS classroom at a public school with TEALS (http://tealsk12.org), and the dynamic's very different. after 30 classroom hours, we're at loops and conditionals!

i suspect you're right about needing to hand-write code -- especially if you're used to things like code snippets and autocomplete. i suppose i feel about hand-writing code the way i feel about understanding compilerish: you'll probably have to do it at some point, and it's a skill worth practicing, but i don't think it should come first.