My unpopular opinion: start as low-level as possibly, preferably with assembly. A hello world in assembly is ~7-8 instructions on x86_64, provides easy introduc

My unpopular opinion: start as low-level as possibly, preferably with assembly. A hello world in assembly is ~7-8 instructions on x86_64, provides easy introduction to debuggers, OS internals, and architecture, and will help understanding higher level abstractions. Starting with high-level is fine if they just want to get a job (in which case they should probably just go straight to JS, Java, or C++), but if they want to really learn and understand, start with low-level.