[yason]

I always answer this question by asking back what it is that they want to make, and also if they're willing to dig for most of the answers themselves because programming is, essentially, solving for an unknown alone.

The aptitude of a programmer is also the same that allows him to self-learn much of the art of programming by himself.

If they have an answer to the first question, I can work backwards with them to narrow it down to tools and languages that possibly make sense. Going with Python is a generic and common choice because there aren't many things you can't do in Python.

If they don't have an answer, it might not be a case lost. Some people truly need just about anything to work on, in order to impose a reason to start tinkering with programming. However, usually it's about overcoming fear for programming but in that case they probably won't make it, either.

For the rest 99% of people I just mumble something and point vaguely to teaching yourself to program in ten years.