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by Bjartr 2566 days ago
Learning how to install and configure development environments is an important skill in general, but I'm not convinced having those skills as a prerequisite for exploring programming as a newbie is at all valuable.
2 comments

It is valuable if they start out with python 3 instead of python 2.
I'd say that depends on what kind of newbie we're talking about.
On macOS the best config-free entry to programming is Swift and Swift Playgrounds. Everything else can have config and shell hell for further more advanced learning purposes.
You still have to download Xcode, of course.