[Cymen]

If my 61 year old dad asked me how to get into programming, I'd recommend they go to a company that was involved in the Software Craftsmanship model that had a long apprenticeship period. I'd recommend this because I've had prior experience working in such a company (8th Light -- Chicago office) and I think that such an environment would set them up for success because while the learning is very self-directed, there is a lot of oversight and involvement in a constructive way by other developers who want to see the apprentice succeed. That isn't to say you couldn't find the same thing at another company but the Software Craftsmanship approach, if done well, would not be as random as the ad hoc experience you might get on the job at another company. A further benefit of working at a consulting company like 8th Light as, if you progress past the apprenticeship, you would be working on a variety of projects in an environment that is focused on doing the job well so the exposure would be a to a wider breadth of the industry (more languages/stacks/team dynamics/etc).