I'll reply mostly on 2. - most of these were already mentioned in the previous thread - [0] Grasshopper, [1] SpaceChem (awhile ago), [2] 7 billion humans (haven't finished it yet, and haven't played for a while), [3] Human Resource Machine and [4] TIS-100. They mostly help to build habits, and persistency, not just being fun.
The "real world" always provides much more interesting "gameplay", but it is sometimes with a too steep learning curve. :)
Edit: And I've been ninja'd by another user, but just remembered that there is another in my wishlist - [5] Baba is you (haven't played it, though)
Adding to the Zachtronics' game TIS-100, there's also EXAPUNKS which is a fun programming puzzle game. You write programs for one or more bots which can then spawn more and communicate with each other. I haven't finished the game because I just play it on random occasions, but the challenges are interesting. There are also some head-to-head challenges with other players that fit a bit into the Core War vein, trying to maintain control of a television broadcast or similar things with points given for how long your video plays and points deducted for things like killing your opponent's process outright (versus just more clever and faster programs).