I think Java can be a bit off-putting for beginners because of verbosity and somewhat forcing people into OOP. HTML and CSS definitely have much more immediate

I think Java can be a bit off-putting for beginners because of verbosity and somewhat forcing people into OOP. HTML and CSS definitely have much more immediate "results" but don't offer the benefit of generally teaching CS thinking. Even if you are an expert in HTML and CSS, being declarative, they don't help you in any way with "traditional" programming.