I Want To Learn Programming. Which Language Should I Start With?

 
Due to the numerous "i want to start programming, which language should i start with" threads on this board i decided to create a thread that will address this issue. I am not a wonderful writer and i won't say i know it all but i will try. I urge every one on this board to correct me where i err an also contribute in whatever way you can to make this thread worth it. I will try as much as possible not to be biased in this write up.

I am not going to go into detail in defining what programming is because i will assume before entering this thread you should already know what programming is. But in summary programming is the act of creating whatever you want with your brain and computer programming is the act of creating whatever you want with your brain and a computer. You can read more from


Programmers could also be called software programmers, software developers and other big-big names you can think of.

Feel free to ask your questions, i will try and answer the ones i can my Ogas in the house will help me with those i can't answer

Please every Programmer should try as much as possible to check on this thread once in a while to help answer some questions Newbies would like to ask.
I will try as much as possible to make this article as simple as possible

BRANCHES OF PROGRAMMING

1. Embedded Systems

2. Desktop applications

3. Web Applications

4. Mobile Applications

5. Console applications
EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

An embedded system is a multi-agent system and computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system, often with real-time computing constraints.It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal computer (PC), is designed to be flexible and to meet a wide range of end-user needs. Embedded systems control many devices in common use today examples of devices with embedded systems are telephone switches, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mp3 players, mobile phones, videogame consoles, digital cameras, DVD players, GPS, brushless DC motors, induction motors and DC motors.Embedded systems contain processing cores that are either microcontrollers or digital signal processors (DSP).

I don't know too much about embedded systems but i know embedded systems are created mainly with C and Assembly Language. I will come to programming languages later.
DESKTOP/STAND-ALONE APPLICATION

An application that runs stand alone in a desktop or laptop computer. such as Opera Browser, Microsoft Office, Corel Draw, Win zip and so on. I am sure you get it. Desktop Applications can run on Windows, Linux, Mac and other Operating Systems. I assume you know what an operating system is
Desktop applications can be created with a variety of programming languages ranging from C, C++, Java, C#, Python, Visual Basic, Visual Basic.NET etc etc etc. They are a lot of them, like i said earlier we will talk of programming languages later on..
WEB APPLICATION

A web application is an application that is accessed by users over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. examples of web applications are Facebook, yahoomail, gmail, Nairaland etc. Web applications are also created with a range of programming languages like PHP, Python, JSP/Servlets, ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby etc
MOBILE APPLICATIONS
A mobile application (or mobile app) is a software application designed to run on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. example of mobile applications are opera mini, UCBrowser, Games etc. Mobile Applications run on different platforms such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android phone or Windows Phone etc. Mobile Applications can be created with Java, Objective-c, c++, C# and so on...
CONSOLE APPLICATIONS

A console application is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface, such as a text terminal, the command line interface of some operating systems (Unix, DOS, etc.) or the text-based interface included with most Graphical User Interface (GUI) operating systems, such as the Win32 console in Microsoft Windows, the Terminal in Mac OS X, and xterm in Unix. Console Applications can be created with C, C++, JAVA etc
They are a lot of them, but these are the ones that i could think of at the time of writing..

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES

1. Java

2. C

3. C++

4. c#

5. Objective C

6. PHP

7. Assembly Language

8. Javascript

9. Visual Basic

10. VB.NET

11. ASP

12. ASP.NET

13. PYTHON

14. Ruby

OTHERS

a. HTML

b. CSS

I will only talk about the ones on BOLD

JAVA

Java
is an object oriented programming language originally developed by
James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which has since merged into Oracle
Corporation). The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++,
but it has fewer low-level facilities than either of them. Java can be
used to create Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Console
Applications and Mobile Applications.

WHERE CAN I LEARN JAVA??

As with any language i will talk about here, they are tons and tons of
books and articles on the Internet that will teach you any of this
languages from beginner to intermediate level. The rest is upto you...

I will provide as much links to on-line tutorials as possible, but
Google is your friend.

Official Tutorial from Oracle:
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/

More

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/index.htm

http://www.javatutorialhub.com/java-tutorial.html

http://www.freejavaguide.com/corejava.htm

http://www.javabeginner.com/

Ebooks

http://www.mkyong.com/featured/top-5-free-java-ebooks/


From Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL484D73FA74A11AC9