Thanks for your answer; that is a great point about the mental model of a web request. I mention PHP and Java because I have experience in web development in both languages, but my training materials would have completely separate tracts for each language.

Essentially I would like to target non-academically trained beginners who want practical/actionable knowledge in the respective language. So my basic outline would be: installing the language, choosing/installing an IDE, setting up a simple web server, language basics, OOP, database interaction, front-end rendering, etc. The reason for this Ask HN is that I would hate to waste extra time on something that 90% of students will grasp immediately, at the expense of a topic that might need extra attention.