No actually, I would argue that it's better to simply start with the basic concepts of C and then get more complicated. Sorta-teaching kids a half dozen languages is meaningless, if our stated goal is to turn out competent IT people.
It's not exactly like C::Java as Integral Calculus::Algebra
Java is a complex monster all it's own, and half the complexity is because it tries to get cute with pass by references, garbage collection, and all manner of things that would only take a week of class time to teach a sufficiently curious individual.
With C, most of the complexity is in dealing with the limitations of the computer itself. It can only do one thing at a time. Memory is finite. If you allocated it, you have to free it.
(When you start getting into object systems, my argument is to ditch compiled options and layer on a scripting language like Python or TclOO that can better handle the Kama-Sutra like transformations abstract objects need to perform.)
Well, if you don't understand memory addressing... how do you understand programming to start with? It's so simple "I want a block of memory" is malloc(). I'm done with a block of memory is free(). A pointer points to a block of memory that was malloc()'ed.
I was 16 years old, reading a xerox copy of K&R's "The C Programming Language", and my only prior experience was BASIC. (Where the looping construct was "GOTO")
The problem is, kids aren't learning programming languages because they are fun. They are learning them in class, and under the gun. It takes years of playing with these concepts before they make sense. And we don't have the kinds of curriculum that stress "this is a multi-year discipline in which what you learn in year 1 forms the basis for year 2." Instead, we reward kids one correct answer at a time, and never mind that the 9 questions they got right were useless, and the one question they got wrong betrays a complete misunderstanding of the subject, it's an "A".
Obviously, the biggest use of Flash on the web is embedded video, but this is hardly the only use, and those are seldom mentioned in the HTML5 v. Flash discussions. With Scribd converting to HTML5, the field seems to be opening up (though their use of Flash always struck me as being an anti-copying measure more than anything else).
So far as I know, HTML5 isn't suitable for things like graphical configurators or 3D models (allowing the user to rotate them) -- or is it? There's QTVR for 3D stuff, but it's always seemed clunky to me. And I haven't seen anything but Flash used for configurators. Are there actually reasonable alternatives to Flash for this sort of thing?
The problem isn't an engineering education. The problem is a complete an total lack of humanities while undertaking said education. Well, not total lack, but a general consideration that it's a pain in the ass and not required to get your job done.
I nary saw a history class, and the only "humanities" we were offered were labeled such. (I.E. a premade minimal class just to say were had it.)
You also have the problem in that Engineering degrees are so in demand, our engineering schools have become diploma mills. Self-contained enclaves. There was no effort on the part of my school to connect what we were learning to anything else. If anything the attitude was "Engineers were special", and everything (including basic math) had a "For engineers" in the title.
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