I’m really taken with Codecademy, a series of free tutorials on learning to code. It’s incredibly simple, and you can take the first exercise without signing in.

I know quite a few people whose portfolio of skills could be enhanced with a little bit of coding; this is a great start for them. I’m not sure it really gets over the initial “eeurgh” factor many people have when they think about programming – but maybe it’s just not for those people. It’s certainly the friendliest coding tutorial I’ve ever seen.