> ..assuming that the given student enters a CS program with no prior programming knowledge
This is bizarre to me. It's like someone signing up for a music degree having never played an instrument. Maybe you'll cram enough to pass a test on the theory, but it's useless knowledge. It's unanchored and will float away.
Or a medical student who never did an operation before? Arts are the exception, not the rule. In other areas it is fully understood that the whole purpose of the program is to teach you everything, so actually saying "you have to know this before" would be weird.
Medical students are expected to have a strong science background, and well before they commit to being a surgeon they'll have units where they need to wield a scalpel. If they find out it's not for them there are plenty of other paths which don't involve surgery.
Engineering students are expected to have a strong maths background. If you can't do algebra and basic calculus then there's no chance of getting in.
It's completely reasonable to expect a CS student to have experience programming.
> It's completely reasonable to expect a CS student to have experience programming.
If you say so. I neither see the reason nor the advantage. Don't get me wrong: I had experience in programming before entering a CS program, but I had fellow students who never did any programming before and they did just fine, while others with programming experience failed. And I'm pretty confident that all of them who managed to stay through the introductory year were/are able to do FizzBuzz.
This is bizarre to me. It's like someone signing up for a music degree having never played an instrument. Maybe you'll cram enough to pass a test on the theory, but it's useless knowledge. It's unanchored and will float away.