I mean obviously there is no one-size-fits-all recommendation. It depends a lot what their goals and background are.

I started out learning PHP on a LAMP stack on an old laptop, and reading C tutorials online. Probably my best move was working through SICP.

If they were math-inclined and weren't worried about immediate employability I'd recommend SICP even though Scheme is irrelevant in industry.

But if they wanted to make money as a web dev as fast as possible, JavaScript makes sense.