I started back in '92 (so when I was 12) with visual basic 3 / 4 - things were a lot simpler then, but also more difficult with no Google / stackoverflow / etc...
A big point in programming I think is the need to solve a problem - ie: write software that doesn't exist for yourself, improve on an existing idea or try to increase your income with freelance / a better job.
If you don't have the drive to accomplish one of those things, programming is difficult - I've worked on projects I had no interest in and regardless of the pay, they just dragged on.
That said - a good programmer can write in any language; the key to becoming a good programmer is learning how to think logically and realizing all languages are roughly the same, just different syntax, performance, usage, etc... Deciding the right language will come with time as there is tons of overlap for any given task.
So -
Step 1: find a need - maybe start with a personal website or a task manager app for her favorite OS.
Step 2: find a language that works on that platform that's popular and well documented - php, ruby, javascript for web; VB, C# for windows, Obj-C, Swift for iOS, etc...
Step 3: start reading documents or books and get the basics of the language down; make smaller programs that accomplish a portion of what the greater app will do (my first program in VB was a program to tell time in various formats, start and stop intervals and timezones)
Step 4: start writing! make mistakes, ask questions, make more mistakes, pull out some hair, drink tons of coffee, make more mistakes and eventually, you'll get good at it.
A big challenge in programming I think (having spoken to new programmers) is getting the terminology down - knowing what to search google for and getting a good answer - to a new programmer, you might be curious about how to "get data from mysql into html table with javascript" when the real question is closer to "php mysql export data to json" and "javascript parse json string from ajax post response"
A big point in programming I think is the need to solve a problem - ie: write software that doesn't exist for yourself, improve on an existing idea or try to increase your income with freelance / a better job.
If you don't have the drive to accomplish one of those things, programming is difficult - I've worked on projects I had no interest in and regardless of the pay, they just dragged on.
That said - a good programmer can write in any language; the key to becoming a good programmer is learning how to think logically and realizing all languages are roughly the same, just different syntax, performance, usage, etc... Deciding the right language will come with time as there is tons of overlap for any given task.
So - Step 1: find a need - maybe start with a personal website or a task manager app for her favorite OS. Step 2: find a language that works on that platform that's popular and well documented - php, ruby, javascript for web; VB, C# for windows, Obj-C, Swift for iOS, etc... Step 3: start reading documents or books and get the basics of the language down; make smaller programs that accomplish a portion of what the greater app will do (my first program in VB was a program to tell time in various formats, start and stop intervals and timezones) Step 4: start writing! make mistakes, ask questions, make more mistakes, pull out some hair, drink tons of coffee, make more mistakes and eventually, you'll get good at it.
A big challenge in programming I think (having spoken to new programmers) is getting the terminology down - knowing what to search google for and getting a good answer - to a new programmer, you might be curious about how to "get data from mysql into html table with javascript" when the real question is closer to "php mysql export data to json" and "javascript parse json string from ajax post response"