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> .. ease of use, elegance ..

I wouldn't put Vim or ubuntu on either of those for a somewhat beginner.

How about, sublime and some web server like AMPP. That's way easier to get started with. Literally no friction.

You've got to start somewhere. More often than not you start with the easiest option and find that you're knee-deep in crap a ways down the line. If all you care about is ease-of-use over learning opportunity you might as well default to Windows with whatever flavor of Visual Studio you can get.

You are right that would be no friction at the start but I would argue there will be more friction later when he wants to build something more complex.

Linux cli and vim and a tiling window manager have a learning curve (mostly remembering keyboard shortcuts) but they are actually far simpler tools with less distractions and more straight forward and robust tooling.

I just taught a completely non technical 30 year old to build static html sites with the above setup. They appreciated the minimalism of having the screen split in half with code on one side and chrome on the other and no docks or menu bars to distract. They picked it up quickly.

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