I agree with you about notes, but I fear it may turn him off and overwhelm him; take the fun out of it if you will.

I think his main goal would just to be able to play with friends who are not very good either but also play some of his favorite songs.

Thanks all for the help, I'm gonna try out some of these ideas.

I think it depends on what he wants to play, if its metal he might want to learn stuff that would help with speed after he learns basics like Bob Dylan stuff.

If its folk he might want to learn lots of chords.

Scales are good if he does a lot of solos but I don't know a lot of this is stuff I sort of picked it up.

But if he doesn't what type of guitar style he wants yet then he should learn a variety, I find that music taste changes when you play guitar.
Mine sure has a whole lot, I was into Punk and Psychedelic when I first started but now I can see my guitar style as a metal style.

I love and hate tabs. They are great because they are easier than notes, but if you only use tabs you will be lacking the much needed skill of reading actual notes.

i'm not disagreeing with the importance of knowing how to read sheet music but in the last 15 years i've only once run across two instance where only knowing how to read tab was a hindrance. one is a book about bass harmonics from '81 that my mom scored for me at a yard sale years ago and the other time was a book of steve vai era frank zappa solos. on 2nd thought it might be better that they didn't have the tab for those zappa solos

the only time i can see a guitar player really needing to know how to read sheet music is if they were going to try to collect a paycheck through their guitar, be it through studio work, dinner theater, or as part of a backing band. if you're just playing for fun with friends it doesn't really matter.

i'm learning the keyboard, and i greatly regret relying on tabs from the start. one reason being that the ones i stumble upon are wrong, especially when compared to the actual sheet music. but i'd also have to agree with panbient's second paragraph. i would suggest tho, if one were very much interested in music, to start with the foundations/basics which includes reading sheet. for a while i got used to playing from tabs, then when time came that it was time to move on from that, i had quite a hard time transitioning from tab reading to sheets. so i'd say learning styles really depends on the individual.

best way to learn in my opinion would be to just start playing along to songs you like.

Thats how i learned, i learned the basics of guitar by playing along to my favorite songs, i built up some chops quickly just challenging myself with harder songs. Then i got some lessons on how to play chords and learn more theory which is what sparks my interest. Before too long i knew all the scales and modes and could jam in whatever key i wanted.