I think you're approaching it from a wrong standpoint. You should start off by telling us what you're going to program in and what your OS and tools of choice are.
The article author is learning to program. Not learn to program in something, learning to program. I doubt it would be a good idea to tell us that, since it would be, in effect, limiting options for exploration. (Well, or just giving us false data, which wouldn't be as bad.)