A word of caution: "Learning to code" is a pretty broad subject. You should have him think about what he actually wants to accomplish with code when he gets ou

A word of caution: "Learning to code" is a pretty broad subject. You should have him think about what he actually wants to accomplish with code when he gets out and have him study topics related to that. He can pickup ancillary things when he gets out; for now he likely wants to be working on something that will help him hit the ground running. If he wants to develop web pages, you should send him some books on JavaScript. If he wants to create mobile apps, there are specific books on this subject for iOS and Android. Most programming languages share concepts like OOP etc anyway, so by learning one he is laying the groundwork to much more easily pickup others. Also, you should give him realistic expectations. Learning to code isn't the panacea that many think it is. There are many broke but talented programmers out there, and most don't have the extra baggage associated with a felony conviction. If he doesn't truly have a passion to create software, and is just looking for a way to make money, there are more efficient things he can learn about - like the psychology behind viral marketing (The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell and Purple Cow by Seth Godin might be good for example). I know someone that couldn't write a line of code to save his life, but makes 6 figures per month creating Facebook pages around ridiculous topics and using them to drive traffic to affiliate offers and his own Adsense pages. Your friend can always hire coders when needed if creating software isn't what he actually wants to do.