Still, C is probably the worst way to introduce someone to programming - even though (or maybe because) it looks like the middle road between learning the principles of how computers work and learning, say, JavaScript. It is much more enlightening if you start with a machine language (assembler) of a simple model of a computer or, at the other extreme, with a high-level (computer science-y) language like Scheme or JavaScript where you are not forced to think of details of the hardware.
But then you'll be too far from a higher-level language like python to be able to make the connection, I think. It's quite easy to make analogies between python and C snippets, but to do that with assembly you have to understand calling conventions, system calls, stack frames, and so so much more.
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Still, C is probably the worst way to introduce someone to programming - even though (or maybe because) it looks like the middle road between learning the principles of how computers work and learning, say, JavaScript. It is much more enlightening if you start with a machine language (assembler) of a simple model of a computer or, at the other extreme, with a high-level (computer science-y) language like Scheme or JavaScript where you are not forced to think of details of the hardware.
But then you'll be too far from a higher-level language like python to be able to make the connection, I think. It's quite easy to make analogies between python and C snippets, but to do that with assembly you have to understand calling conventions, system calls, stack frames, and so so much more.