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As long as:
- the language (and the associated tools) are available
- it has all of the fundamentals of programming (looping, flow control, data structures, variables, etc)
- and it grabs their interest
who cares what languages they learn? If they enjoy it and it allows them to learn how to program why should it matter what language they start out with?
Well, I do have some experience (more than 20 years, actually) in teaching programming. I would agree that ANY language can be used to teach programming, but it DOES MATTER which one is used. The reason is, people will go to (and only learn) what's easier to use on each language.
On most (all?) languages, all the components are available for people to learn effective programming, but on some of them, the constructs people will use most are not enough to create a full understanding of programming. You create "paper programmers" that can solve (mostly by boilerplate copying) easy or familiar problems, but cannot think outside using those "pre-built" tools. Sure, you can ignore some constructs and just teach the basic components, but then, why are you using that particular language?
Another question to consider is the "initial steps" required to start doing something. On many languages (and mostly on "powerfull" programming languages), to be able to create something requires either the use of specialized IDEs that take you away from the actual code or lots and lots of complex syntax that is hard to explain to a neophyte other than saying "its required, you'll learn about it later". Neither is ideal.