Regarding "small projects," how useful are they in motivating learners to continue the learning the language? Having robust tooling introduces overhead initially (and to be honest, seemingly eternally), but also makes the impractical possible.
The goals of a first year CS class probably don't include motivating learners to continue learning any particular language; they may include motivating the learners to continue learning CS and/or programming in general.
My first year CS data structures class was in scheme, as used to be popular. I enjoyed the class a lot, leanred a lot, and also found it very challenging. I think scheme was perfect for it. But I had no particular desire to continue with scheme afterwords, which is fine. (Not because I have anything against scheme, but on to other things).
