Programming - Where do i start?

[Raion]

My programming professor would tell you to start with Perl, I started with PHP & Qbasic (roughly, didn't really get into too complicated stuff with PHP and Qbasic is...basic.) and now Java.

So personally, I'd say Java even though people complain about the objects (but I know no better so works for me )

I use Eclipse for a compiler, beautiful piece of work. It makes learning Java easier even though I found Java to be easy as is.

As for how to go about learning it, I found that the easiest way for me to learn is to think of a program I want to make (e.g. Hello World!"), then find out how to make it. Then improve that program until improvements can't be done anymore (Make Hello World appear in an applet [for Java] with balls randomly shooting at it and slowly deteriorating the words). It's a good baseline and always keeps me interested Hope this helps.