Why don't Apple, Microsoft etc. package the stuff you need to get start programming with their OSes? (So one could begin learning with 5 mouse clicks or less.)
Sorry if this is a hopelessly naive question
They do, or at least Apple does with the inclusion of a version of Ruby as standard in OSX, various shell scripting options, and Xcode available for free from the Mac App Store (although I would question how easy that is for a novice to get started with). Windows? Not so much.
This would be something like clicking on an application called 'Ruby' in the applications folder and then a window popping up ready to start typing my script in. (If there are choices to be made, fine, just make it work with some default options and I can switch text editor or whatever later.)
The same set-up on every single Mac/PC, out of the box. Every resource required pre-installed and automatically updated with the OS.
No credit cards, no searching online, no knowledge of what is required beforehand, no obscure dependencies, no expert friend required, no need to read instructions about how to set up, etc.
As for the same set-up on every single Mac/PC, it's already there, it is just slightly harder to get to than you want. It's called a web browser, and there are numerous URLs you can go to that let you program right in the browser.
W3schools is probably the easiest to find, and lets you try HTML and JavaScript right in the webpage. http://www.w3schools.com/html/ and http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
The online version of "Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming" by Marijn Haverbeke has an integrated JavaScript console at the bottom to follow along. http://eloquentjavascript.net/chapter1.html
If anything, the problem is that there are too many answers, targeted at too many starting levels, so it is hard to Google for any likely phrases and get to the answer easily.Searching for "begin programming" seems to give better beginner answers, whereas "learn to program" tends to give more college-level answers.
I see no reason why a kid who is interested in how to do it, and grew up in the modern era around web browsers and search engines and such, would have any trouble finding something quickly.