Progressive programming assignments were used in an introductory Java programming course where every assignment built on the previous one. The major goal was to help students learn difficult, abstract concepts. This technique allows students to concentrate on the current topic while building on their previous work. This also provides an incentive for students to keep up with their work. Students often feel that they can skip the current topic and pick up after it is over, but it is difficult to do this in a programming course because every new concept builds on the previous ones. This approach also has built-in scalability, which is difficult to achieve in introductory programming courses due to time constraints and the students limited knowledge. These assignments were given in a CS2-type course where the topics predominantly deal with abstract concepts. This paper discusses the assignments, goals, faculty observations, student comments, and results.