Ask HN: What's the “best” way for a senior to begin learning how to code?

They said, the 72 year old woman is starting from zero. She may not have done anything at all yet (perhaps for lack of knowledge on where to start).

It is highly likely that she just thinks she wants to code, and will give up during the first step into the thicket of incomprehensibility involved in starting from zero. But the same exact thing could be said about a 12 year old starting out, and absolutely nobody would suggest that the 12 year old should be discouraged from trying. Rather, most everyone would cheer on the 12 year old and throw resources at them. (Pretty much the same ones people have already suggested here, so I won't add more.)

Bit of a pet peeve to me -- the older people get, the faster people will jump to say that they shouldn't do something new. Not that you were necessarily saying that, but it happens quite often.

My dad (also 72) has been learning to play guitar lately. He's not very good, and his progress is slow, but he's thoroughly enjoying it.

I was an extremely good student who had all kinds of accolades but I'm also seriously handicapped. I've wanted to learn how to code for more than a decade and I've had people tell me I'm simply not really interested (because I'm not succeeding).

That's not true.

I don't know what piece I'm missing to get traction on the learning process, but I seriously want to learn.

I will add that at age 72, if she just uses it as a time filler and "never accomplishes anything," it's her time to fill as she sees fit. Why should anyone care if she studies and studies and never produces a single thing?