[pasbesoin]

Another, um, "vote" for Perl. Although I haven't come to detest it.

And I agree, a lot of starting coders want to get something done. While quite a few programming courses seem to start from the other side of things, without even really explaining that they are doing so. The student sees the tasks they have in mind being months and months away and encompassing a quantity of detail that seems frighteningly overwhelming. By contrast, actually accomplishing useful things, and digging into the details as you need to, seems more motivating.

(However, it helps to concurrently receive and absorb a strong caution that you don't understand all the "magic" and should be careful of over-relying on what may turn out to be mistaken assumptions. Which reminds me, Perl seemed to imply, for me, developer testing: Don't just code it up, throw test cases -- and, if you can, live data -- against it and see what you get. Work some of the data through an alternate tool/methodology, and ensure that the results match. Continue to cross check as you move forward.)

"Programming Perl" was/is a great read. One of those books interesting not just in reciting, but in genuinely communicating with the reader.