For a child, I would go with Alice. Any kid is going to like the drag-and-drop interaction that Alice uses better than trying to remember how to spell and punctuate any programming language. He/She will learn the basic programming structures (conditionals, loops, etc.) and will experience the fun of building an animated program they can show off to other family or friends.
A beginner CS class at the local community college actually uses Alice to teach programming in a language-independent way. It provides a good foundation for moving into programming in a particular language (or a few languages) down the road.
