I recommend that you identify the language you plan to use, and learn that one. Other posts have given good suggestions for particular languages.

The mistake I made early on was to try too hard to follow a college-like path. That is, learn Pascal, because it was designed to be a teaching language. Then learn C, because it's the basis for many other languages, then learn C++, because it's object-oriented, and based on C...

I lost interest in Pascal pretty quickly, because I knew I'd never use it after learning it. C was very intimidating at first, and difficult for me to find "useful" things to do so I could see quick progress. I'm the kind of person who wants quick feedback early on, to be sure I'm on the right track.

### Begin Subtle Perl Plug ###
Perl has been great for me because it works at a lot of different levels. In Programming Perl, it's explained in terms of a natural language. A child can communicate using a subset of his native language, even imperfectly. That's true with Perl, too. You don't have to get it all perfect before you start seeing results. Quick feedback facilitates learning.
### End Subtle Perl Plug ###

So, choose the language you want to use - have what you consider to be a Good Reason for choosing that language - and stick with it. Expect to have rough spots, and expect to have to think!



Best of luck to you! Update: Here's the Natural Language thing I was talking about.

In reply to Re: programming language by mrbbking
in thread programming language by Anonymous Monk

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