I meant "a language". Corrected it.

> A competent programmer can think about programming and reason about programs written in most languages without having to know that particular language intimately

That's because the programmer already learned how to program.

But when they started, they definitely didn't write only pseudocode that wasn't runnable (to see the results) for months/years.

> they definitely didn't write only pseudocode that wasn't runnable (to see the results) for months/years.

GT started students that way and it worked well for years. A full semester (number varied, but was the CS 101 course, 1301/1311/1501 or something like that), taught with only pseudocode. They got rid of it because of appearances, trying to be like every other school out there. Eventually settling on Python, I think, after a brief stint with Scheme (which ended after a major cheating scandal).