Well, *I* think that 64k different languages should be enough for anyone. //rim shot
So, anyway, anyone who claims that any particular language is the right one to start with (and will lead to fame, fortune, and everything that goes with it) is a fool. I can see some justification for avoiding heavily obfuscated languages like APL or perl in favor of any language that actually uses, you know, words, to identify the functions and operations you want to do. If a high-school kid can't understand that "for," "do," "while," etc. are performing mostly the same operation, then he's screwed regardless of the actual language in question.