Hi, I am a university professor in one of Paris universities. I teach programming to both computer scientists and biologists. Fundamentals-first is of course my choice for CS students.
As for students in biology I will always go tools-first, at least for the first course (which is ~30 hours here). Then for further courses I would go fundamentals.
A lot of students of biology (unfortunately) don't really care about programming, and may consider it as some kind of black magic. Taking them quickly to do things that "works" is essential to break the ice. And this is just what I think the first course is for: to give them the intuition of what programming is.
Then, for a biologist to take a second course of programming (this is not mandatory here) means he/she really wants to learn something, so we can raise up the bar and go fundamentals.
Hope this helps.