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Actually also being actively ported to other languages, including javascript, ruby and python.

I introduced computer programming in my geometry class this semester with Khan Academy. It's a great interface, with clear tutorials, minimal setup (an account helps, but it ties into our school's Google Education domain automatically) and instant feedback for both results and errors. Khan's programming interface is in javascript using processing.
At the start of the unit I polled my students, and of the 63 I have in geometry, only 3 had prior exposure to programming. Those 3 had parents in tech and had done some science/engineering summer camp activities, and were looking into it on their own. I was a little surprised, because when I was a kid, my elementary school all got some programming exposure on Logo on C64s back in the 80s.

If you learn javascript and make it a web-based type deal, you can use something like processing js [ http://processingjs.org/ ] to handle the graphics for you.

Processing is Java, what does have to do with WebGL? Do you mean Processing.js?

There is also the JavaScript version of Processing that works with Canvas.

Processing JS

I remember making screensavers with stuff similar to this.
One being a simple set of triangles moving around on screen, to more advanced large-sided polygons spawning other polygons.
Evolutionary Processing is really fun to play around with as well.

I really need to put some of this code up somewhere one day. Maybe with Processing JS, first versions were on YaBASIC on PS2.

Processing is also available in a version that runs directly in the browser: http://processingjs.org/

I don't think you can fully appreciate the deep beauty of the Mandelbrot set until you've coded your own program to render it. Sure, once you've done it, use someone else's implementation -- it's sure to be faster, more flexible and have a nicer UI. But writing your own makes you understand the underlying maths.

I wrote mine in Basic on a BBC Micro. I'd leave it overnight to render a full screen 320x256, 4bpp.

Now it's a piece of cake in Processing or Processing.js, and renders pretty much instantly:
http://processingjs.org/learning/topic/mandelbrot

If you've not written a Mandelbrot renderer, I'd suggest either starting blind, or studying the example above, then rewriting it without looking at the original.

Yeah, it's not even that hard. As mentioned in TFA, they use Processing.js, which is a javascript port of Processing