I don't know about gruseom's nephew, but I suspect that even or especially for people just reaching the age where they can begin programming, there is something inherently more difficult about understanding lisp-like structure compared to more python or ruby like structure. Perhaps I am underestimating the minds of today's 11 year olds, but I don't think I would have gotten lisp at that age.<p>If anyone has actually tried to teach a 10 or 11 or 12 year old lisp, the whole board would be curious about your results. For now, I think it makes more sense for gruseom's nephew to use one of the languages with pedagogy better tested on young people: python or ruby.<p>Gruseom, the choice between python or ruby doesn't make that much difference, go with whichever one you are more comfortable with. One nice thing about ruby is Hackety Hack; a self-contained learning IDE. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackety_Hack" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackety_Hack</a>