What's a good place to start with computer programming?

i need a way to teach myself. i'm very familiar with computers, but programming i know nothing about. what kind of program is good to start with? what programming language? what kind of books can i find on the subject of it? stuff like that. thanks.

What's a good place to start with computer programming?
When you get really confused by all these recommendations, go to the URL below. They have a lot of brief articles, free tools, and links to other things you might like to try out for free. Have fun at first and don't over regiment yourself. You'll learn some things and maybe decide to expand slowly or quickly. Good luck!
Reply:I would recommend one of the Wrox Press books that are titled "Beginning " xxxx. They are targeted to entry level programmers. If you are planning on pursuing programming as a career I highly recommend you starting with Java or C#.
Reply:HTML is good, but Pearl scripting will lead to C++.





Html will get you ready though
Reply:C++ and java are about the same(I would start here).





the product that you will get from java is usable on both macs and pcs no matter which one you programmed it from. I don't know if it's the same with the others.





C is a little harder because of the constraints, but it is the basis for operating systems.


Maple is kind of hard.


Scilab/Matlab are a little hard too.





Any programming book will be a little overwhelming. The books by Deitel and Deitel are okay as long as you have an okay background in mathematics and logic. The java book is about $100, but I would try and find it on half.com, or go to a college bookstore and try to find it used.
Reply:HTML isn't a programming language. I started with PHP and after learning that, I found all other languages to be pretty easy at start.
Reply:Learning free pascal is easier.





http://www.freepascal.org





The compiler is free.


And you can find a lof of examples and handouts





Learning C is more difficult than pascal.


The newest language is Ruby





According to what to do with the language, you can choose a language to learn.
Reply:I would reccomend C++ because it supports many APIs and functions such as CGI on a relatively low level
Reply:HTML is an easy language to teach yourself. Learn older languages like BASIC and PASCAL for practice, and then move into things like Javascript and C++





How to books abound in just about every bookstore across the country. There are also many tutorial websites you can check out.
Reply:Personally I would start with C, yeah there's a bunch of constraints and stuff, but it can help prevent you becoming overwhelmed by the sheer details that C++ has, and appricate them later. There are a bunch of free tutorials online where you can get help on the details of any language. For C/C++ I would recommend functionx.com, it really helped me out in my college classes. You can also google "C tutorials" and come up with a bunch of other good sites as well.
Reply:I would strongly recommend Java. C++ is a difficult place to start from.


Go to java.sun.com, download and install the JDK (Java Development Kit) J2SE 1.5 release 6 with NetBeans IDE bundled in. This will give you all the tools you need for free. There is also an excellent tutorial available at java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/


That'll provide you with an excellent starting point. Don't be tempted to follow the Microsoft C# or VB route, Java will run on ANY operating system - Windows, Linux, Solaris, doesn't matter.