> Am I going to ruin their productive lives by introducing them to Factorio?
Yes most definitely, but they will enjoy it!
That said, I do agree that you can look at designing a factory with a mindset of writing good code, and refactoring that code as you modify the factory. I'm not sure if this will provide a benefit to existing programmers, I could see it being useful for explaining those concepts to new programmers - perhaps as part of an IT class in school though.
In a professional setting is the time better spent practicing refactoring katas and going actual development techniques to make code better vs playing a game.
I think using it in a CS101 or learn to program class would work well.
Yes most definitely, but they will enjoy it!
That said, I do agree that you can look at designing a factory with a mindset of writing good code, and refactoring that code as you modify the factory. I'm not sure if this will provide a benefit to existing programmers, I could see it being useful for explaining those concepts to new programmers - perhaps as part of an IT class in school though.