One issue is it’s object-oriented, and dogmatically so. To do anything you need a handful of objects, and to be ‘idiomatic’ (or even regular) you need to adhere to this standard; it severely inhibits flexibility in design of your code and probably has a more fundamental language impact in regards to evolution. This is more an issue as time goes on and you keep programming, though (seen lots of people who’ve always been OO and never looked back.) I don’t think this is the right model for a beginner.

In regards to abstraction in relation to teaching, I think more fundamental concepts that can connect your code with the resulting program are more critical in the beginning stages. At least to the point where you understand the correlation between your code program execution.

A much deeper problem however I think has been stated before: we’ve simply dropped our standards, and diluted our profession with easily replaceable people and not truly knowledgeable ones. Our courses aren’t as rigorous, and it’s simply a decline. Reform is needed, but maybe Eternal September has already begun?