Someone awsome on here recommended Learn Python the Hard Way. I've had school off since Tuesday and I've been kicking it's ass since. It's really fun. I thought it'd be neat to test out what my abilities are like on Project Euclid.
I've solved three so far. I'm particularly proud of coming up with a program to do the Fibonacci sequence. It's a simple program, and probably not as efficient as it could be, but i didn't look at any spoilers and feel like a diabolical genius after having solved it.
That's great! I hope you keep working on it.
People on this board have talked about programming as a gear in your brain that, to a first approximation, you have or you don't. I'm wondering if there's some well put-together resource you can direct someone with zero experience and just a web-browser to and say "if you're having fun an hour from now, you have the gear, good luck" -- maybe something on Khan academy?
(I learned to program a long time ago, and I started with BASIC program listings in my math textbook -- I don't actually know what the optimal onramps are now.)