Learning a programming language often involves learning the syntax and semantics of a language. However to become an expert at a language requires one to move beyond writing simple programs to developing a large enough system in which the code needs to be readable, maintainable and can be evolved in future.Writing small programs using the syntax of a language does not teach these key skills to developers. In simple programs, one can get away with having non meaningful names and brittle code. Since the only person reading this code is the same developer, it does not create readability issues, at least in the short run, which is typically the lifetime of these small programs. However such habits can carry over when working with on a large system comprising of a large team of developers. As Harlan Mills wrote in his book, Software Productivity.Our present programming courses are patterned along...