[bitwize]

This is what I tell people: Start with Python.

"I heard of Python; I was thinking of learning that or JavaScript..."

No. I'm from the future. You should start with Python.

The only problem I have with Python is its weird scoping rules and the fact that it's dynamically typed. But it's overall LESS weird than JavaScript. Beginning programmers need a clean, minimally weird language, ideally with a REPL, in which to grasp the basics: namely that computers follow composable sequences of instructions and these instructions need to be written in an unambiguous way. In the 80s we used cut-down BASIC dialects for this; today, Python is as close to optimal a choice as we can get.

Starting people with JavaScript and Web pages to make programming "more relevant to today's users" is like giving Hamlet a backwards ball cap, skateboard, and sunglasses to make him "more relevant to today's teens".