I have always thought that getting familiar with a command line is a good way to think of programming for people that are familiar with computers, but not with

I have always thought that getting familiar with a command line is a good way to think of programming for people that are familiar with computers, but not with software development. If they can start with some basic things (moving one file from one folder to another) and then start to get the concept of chaining commands together via scripting (moving multiple files to multiple destinations depending on the name) they will get a grasp of the simple concepts because they will know what they want their output to be. This sort of learning can take place in a matter of days and then I would recommend going to a language with an interactive shell (ruby, python, etc...). From there, I find that short exercises are helpful. If they enjoy math based problems, I cannot recommend project euler enough. Otherwise, if they can relate their programming work back to their specific fields(ie, writing up an analysis of unemployment data or digging into gene sequencing), they will see it in a different, more applicable light. I am biased being in the industry, but anyone with a good working knowing of a LAMP stack (know how to set up all components with default settings, understands the basic of SQL queries, can write a cgi script to fetch data from the database) can get into an entry level job with enough intelligence.