My friend is seeking online courses or resources for his 12-year-old child to learn programming skills.
👤 BD103 Accepted Answer ✓
I learned programming through a mixture of Scratch and code.org. Once I "graduated" from those websites, I learned my first professional programming language using W3Schools.
I wouldn't recommend signing up for W3Schools, but the free content is a good enough primer for beginners. (Some of the examples are not idiomatic, though.)
I hope that helps :)
👤 ranc1d
Al Sweigarts books also a good option too and available online for free
Game mods! Modding is how your humble commenter got his start 15 years ago, with http://sthurlow.com/python/ and a copy of Civ IV that could use some tweaks.