The most important thing to get a programmer started is to get them a project they want to finish. So, get him on something with good feedback.
Does he play any games that have scripting languages? Lua's pretty popular. Additionally, there's TorqueScript, for the torque engine (garagegames.com).
If he's not a gamer, dump the imperative stuff & have him start on scheme or lisp. If you haven't broken your mind into imperative thought like most of us, it's actually pretty straightforward. And it'll probably fit well with the math classes he's probably taking right now. Teaching him how to solve homework problems in code can really drive usage.
If he's interested on the web side, generating HTML from a functional language is pretty straightforward.
Does he play any games that have scripting languages? Lua's pretty popular. Additionally, there's TorqueScript, for the torque engine (garagegames.com).
If he's not a gamer, dump the imperative stuff & have him start on scheme or lisp. If you haven't broken your mind into imperative thought like most of us, it's actually pretty straightforward. And it'll probably fit well with the math classes he's probably taking right now. Teaching him how to solve homework problems in code can really drive usage.
If he's interested on the web side, generating HTML from a functional language is pretty straightforward.
Please, no PHP. Friends don't let friends do PHP.