best languages to learn as a newcomer
mdasen: I personally think Python would be best.  Python will allow her to understand conditionals, loops, variable assignment, etc. really simply and quickly.Once you have that down, it's a lot easier to start dealing with things like static types, memory management, pointers, null bytes, and so on.I learned the other way around (with C being my introductory language), but that was a useless way to learn.  When you don't know exactly how to use a conditional, there's no reason to throw in things that can trip you up and have nothing to do with your understanding of a conditional.And, to be honest, Python will do nicely for lots of applications.  If she's going to be joining a company, she'll have to use what they want her to use, but if she's independent, Python will be fine unless the calculations are so complex that they are time constrained.  Even then, Java isn't so hard to pick up if you know PythonIt's a lot easier to add on CS concepts little by little than to have to deal with everything all at once.