Pro tip: stop telling new folks to learn Python first, it nearly ran my nephew off for good
Everyone in here keeps saying Python is the best starter language, and I just don't buy it for a total beginner. My nephew Marcus, who is 19, tried an online Python course back in January and quit after 9 days because he spent most of that time fighting the install, the PATH setup, and a weird pip error on his Windows laptop. He never wrote more than about 15 lines of actual code. I had him open a plain HTML file in Notepad instead, and within 20 minutes he had a page with his name on it and a button that changed the background color. He could see the result right away, and that kept him going. Python is fine later, but that setup wall is real for someone who has never touched a terminal. For me the question is simple: what is the lowest friction path to seeing something happen on screen? Has anyone here started someone on HTML or even Scratch and watched it stick better than Python did?