[geeks] Introductory programming language?

[Nemo]

On 31 August 2011 07:46, William Barnett-Lewis <wlewisiii at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 4:39 AM,  <geeks-request at sunhelp.org> wrote:
>
>> From: Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
>> My sister has just expressed an interest in learning some programming.
>> She's had some minimal exposure, but effectively is starting from zero.
>> I apparently (I don't recall) taught her a tiny bit of FORTRAN back
>> when I first learnt it myself (we're talking some 35 years ago) and she
>> took one summer course in Visual Basic which she never touched again
>> afterwards and says she doesn't remember anything from.  She is *not*
>> stupid by any stretch.
> (snip)
>> Any thoughts?
>
> Squeak Smalltalk or Lispworks Common Lisp come to mind. But really,
> isn't this the classical case for Pascal?

I am torn between Squeak (check out "Squeak -- learning programming
with robots") and Oberon (successor to Pascal).   However, the latter
may be a bit much.  MIT taught Scheme to first-year students (using
"How to design programs").

How much effort does she care to expend?  Is it intellectual
curiosity, utilitarian usage, or in between?