Firstly PHP, secondly C, thirdly assembly.

PHP has a lot of features in a close relationship with C and assembly will give you more of machine-level understanding required for programming.

PHP fits more of network related job handling, C is good for general programming regardless the architectures while assembly gives almost close - and almost as it is - to architecture specific job when the speed is in demand.

PHP will give the ease to the learner to get familiar with C and as well as other languages with C and C will give more understanding of the computer machine required in order to approach assembly.

This learning step is just my opinion and any comments on this topic would be appreciated.

I think I'd start people off with a more true language. Php is simple to pick up after learning a true coding language (like most net scripting languages) so it would almost slow the person down imo. C is a great choice for an early language although c++ might also be good to get the object oriented style introduced to them. Assembly is a useful skill, but really its specific to the platform and won't be that useful unless you plan to work in embedded systems or the like.

Really any order works, and unless you know exactly what your life will hold for you its hard to pick the 'perfect' order. Yours is really good for well rounded but might not be super efficient. Others might be more efficient at the cost of missing out on net skills or whatnot. Its all a trade off

I would say learn an OOP language first; something like Java, C#, or C++. They're by far the easiest to learn, though the first two won't teach you a goddamn thing about memory management, which I think is something of a failing of OOP in managed space.

Second, learn a high-level iterative language. C is good for this (if you picked C++ above, you can skip this step, more or less). Everyone should know C, in my opinion...so much software is built upon it.

Third, learn assembly for a platform that's used. When I was in college they taught us assembly for the MIPS R2000 architecture. I have not yet, to date, used this. I really wish they'd have taught us x86 or PowerPC assembly; at least I could have used those in practice. In the end, I went off and learned x86 assembly on my own...such a shame, really.

Fourth, experiment a little! Play with prolog, and lisp, and Icon (w00t, U of A!). Maybe learn some Cobol for shits and giggles

HISTORY
My first language was: Basic, learned in Visual Basic 6.0 at the school, my first programming job was to support an ERP for markets, after 2 months, my boss let my try with PHP, then C and C++. At the School, I did learned Java(3 years after basic). The learning curve for C and C++ may be a problem if you don't have well based know of OO, UML, etc. Recently I started to work in a project based on a "Requirements Documentation", now I learned that programming is nothing without planning and modeling. I touched very little Asembly, only in my "crack study", Is very complex but powerful. My line is Web Programming, then I have to invest in multi-platform and multi-browser technology, by now, asembly is so far in my way.

CONCLUSION
The way to learn programming is very different for every one, according to their skills, demands and needs. Buy programming is not the only think you must do, first you have to train your brain to follow common conventions and produce better every time.

Blessings!

Hahaha I love that ethergeek mentioned prolog. I studied it a bit this past year for... reasons... and we had a blast with it. In reality I hate the damn thing, but its really good for what its built for heh. You can pull off some interesting tricks and it gets you thinking about programming in a different light. Although if you REALLY wanna blow you're frame of programming reference, try out APL haha

I hated prolog...probably because of the way it was taught, I just never found any use for it that was not better served (in my opinion) and faster served by simply using a more straightforward iterative language. On the other side of that, lisp has proved very useful...I've found uses for lisp that other languages can't satisfy as gracefully and quickly.