I'm conflicted in suggesting JavaScript. It's a pretty easy language to learn, very easy to set up (you have a web browser? Great, you're good to go), and very popular. But, it's sometimes just a terrible language. I don't know if I'd want beginners thinking that all languages make that little sense.
I agree. JavaScript is something that must be learned, but I am glad that it wasn't my first exposure to programming. My appreciation for JavaScript is still growing, but that has far more to do with what can be done with the language than with its actual properties. I so wish browsers spoke Lisp. :)
Same. I really don't like loosely typed languages, and JavaScript has some things that don't seem 'propper'. I also can't find any free IDE for it so I spend a lot of my time switching between Firefox's debug window and the code. After I did some JavaScript, I did a C course which was when I really started to understand how things worked, but I think the C course would have been more confusing had I not done some JavaScript first.