Games, and game modding, seems to be the most accessible and most successful gateway drug to programming.  Games that have decent mod support can offer a natural skill progression, without overwhelming all at once.  Start by tweaking some data; move on to basic scripting.  Eventually, you start to chafe against the limitations of the game&#x27;s modding abilities, and want to start building your own thing.<p>This whole process is grounded in something real, and something that is more fun than crunching numbers or building a fake CRUD app.<p>I&#x27;m curious about the spate of games that directly incorporate programming.  Maybe they have been more effective than I think, but for the most part, they just aren&#x27;t really that fun, IMHO.  They lean too hard towards the edu, and not enough toward the tainment...  Particularly in comparison to, say, building a custom StarCraft map with triggers and conditions or a Quake level, that you can go play with your friends after.