The article is missing what I think is the zeroth skill to teach beginning programmers - a love of hacking on things and getting results.

It's why I think Javascript is the best language to teach beginners. Yes, it's an ugly language. Yes, it has significant structural problems. Yes, it will bite you in hilariously difficult to find ways. But that doesn't particularly matter compared to teaching them that they can futz around with code and get interesting stuff done.