However, the #1 problem all the people I've tested this on have is getting basic gear going. The simple act of just "write, run, fix" is even daunting. The goal of this section is to give them a very simple set of things to do so they can get to just enough working gear to do write, run, fix.
That "immediate gratification" just doesn't exist anymore. It existed for BASIC because Microsoft included it for free for years, so no install needed. These days there just isn't something like that out there.
The only exception to this would be a Javascript book. But, javascript is such a giant nasty mess it would be hard to teach things like this. Without good error messages, syntax errors, etc. it'd be pointless to teach it.
If I could find some time to fix up Shoes and then Hackety, there would be. It's hard when you can't get the library you're building on to compile...
The first think Zed asks his readers to do is find the terminal and get a python command prompt up un going. arrg..
The first thing a new programmer should do is something cool and interesting, or useful. Immediate gratification.
10 PRINT "Jay Rocks" 20 GOTO 10