I've also found that most people who were curious about programming got very excited when I showed them the dev tools of browsers. For at least one it triggered

I've also found that most people who were curious about programming got very excited when I showed them the dev tools of browsers. For at least one it triggered a love of programming. One option to make js a little easier to start with is to install a CoffeeScript plugin. Not sure if it's a good idea, but it's an option. Also, one nice side-effect of getting them started on javascript is that learning another language (ruby or python, perhaps), is a wonderful next step because suddenly you're using a much 'friendlier' language! Whereas if you start with that, having to deal with js can be frustrating.