Well I have no experience with Ruby, but I have some experience with Java and I would suggest Visual Basic for a beginner because it will not frighten them of programming because of the GUI that it has. It is fun making the interface and it is even more fun when you do not need to type some stuff over and over again, because VB provides it. Furthermore VB is very easy to learn and it takes little knowledge of porgramming to pick it up and use it, it certianly happened for me (I lied I knew programming before I started V
, but trust me it is easy to learn, I suggest VB.