jocastette

Those sound like good things but as you suggest this doesn't meet the standard of beginner friendliness.

This would be something like clicking on an application called 'Ruby' in the applications folder and then a window popping up ready to start typing my script in. (If there are choices to be made, fine, just make it work with some default options and I can switch text editor or whatever later.)

The same set-up on every single Mac/PC, out of the box. Every resource required pre-installed and automatically updated with the OS.

No credit cards, no searching online, no knowledge of what is required beforehand, no obscure dependencies, no expert friend required, no need to read instructions about how to set up, etc.

Getting a programming environment is indeed a barrier which I have experienced a number of times. This contrasts with schooldays when I could start writing a basic program simply by switching the computer on.

Why don't Apple, Microsoft etc. package the stuff you need to get start programming with their OSes? (So one could begin learning with 5 mouse clicks or less.)

Sorry if this is a hopelessly naive question