[gregjor]

Demand is for people with experience and demonstrated skills who can add value to a business. Very few companies hire people they have to spend a lot of time training. Some will hire grads fresh from schools that have good CS programs.

Your friend can expect to spend several years of deliberate practice learning to program. There’s no shortcut, no best language or framework to learn. The fundamentals are the same for all of them.

[skogsbonde]

I'm sorry but this is plain wrong. Not all programming jobs are the same. Has every coworker you've worked with had a solid grasp of the complete set of computer science fundamentals? I'd be surprised if that was the case for you, because in my case it's a definite no. But they still had the job and completed tasks didn't they?

[gregjor]

Which parts exactly did I get plain wrong?

I wrote the fundamentals are the same for all programming languages and frameworks. I didn’t write that “a solid grasp of the complete set of computer science fundamentals” is necessary for programming. I didn’t mention computer science at all. I was referring to the fundamentals of programming.

Reading and writing are fundamental skills required to learn and communicate. What one chooses to read or write follow from the fundamental skills. You don’t ask “How can I learn to read Harry Potter?” because learning to read anything comes first.

[skogsbonde]

Ok so you were referring to the fundamentals of programing and not computer science. The term "fundamentals of" can mean different things depending on what you're referring to. The fundamentals of C programming could be said to encompass understanding the stack and the heap and how memory is allocated and operated on through pointers. Or the fundamentals of Python could be said to encompass understanding that the program is a made up of statements that are executed in order, and that there are loops, variables, and if statements. Learning to write basic Python program doesn't take years.

[gregjor]

I thought I was clear stating that the fundamentals are the same for programming languages and frameworks.

Someone can learn Python syntax in a short time. That’s not the hard part of programming, though. It takes considerably more time to learn how to solve real problems with code, to understand and implement requirements, to work with a team, to learn any database. No company needs someone to write 2,000 more lines of Python.

The OP is asking the wrong question, probably with good intentions. Carpenters need to know how to use a saw and a hammer, but that’s just the beginning, and which brand of hammer and saw makes no difference because those are necessary but not sufficient skills.