Programming - For Newbie

to pick a language, look at which languages are most commonly asked for in your local area.

learning c++ when all employers want java would be a bit of a waste of time, for employment purposes.
never a waste to learn, but focus on your desired end result.

for java ( most common for all areas ) try java.com

I would say to learn VB .NET. The learning curve is the least linguistically and it's a bit easier to read than the C-based syntax for newbies.

When you've learned the concepts of OO and/or .NET, then move to C# or C++.

For programming information on any of the languages mentioned above, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com and start using the search. Microsoft has loads of documentation on languages constructs, code samples, etc.

What do you want to do with the language(s) that you will be learning?

What have you seen that you've said to yourself, "That's awesome. I'd like to do that."?

Look around, see what you like, and work towards that. There are sooooo many languages and each one has its "best use".

Personally, I love anything to do with web applications. HTML, ColdFusion, JavaScript, and SQL Server are the "languages" I focus on.

Do you what you love, and you'll love what you do.

I'd start with HTML and javascript. Once you understand those, I'd move onto "real" programming languages like C, Java, or C++.

C: Hard to learn, but gives you enough of a foundation to learn any other programming language
Java: Good languages, not too hard to learn OOP
C++: Same as Java, but it is a little more difficult

i am also like you, curious to see what it takes to be a programmer. I did a search using google and had gathered some materials to make a start. here we go:

http://home.student.utwente.nl/l.e.veen/lhfaq/node2.html
http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto/HowToBeAProgrammer.html

http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/alan.gauld/
(this site is very good)

i am yet to start trying it out. but the authors
really care to help in learning.

have patience to go through the entire site.
I have taken print outs of these articles for study.

wish you good luck.

Since you specifically say for a newbie I would highly recommend the Python programming language. Since it is very simple, very well documented, and I think fun. You can get is from http://www.python.org . There is a tutorial on the documentation page http://python.org/doc/ . I use the language all the time for scripting tools on my computer, CGI for websites, and I've written a game I've released online PyC4.

Python, I would say, is the best to start learning simply for it's simplicity. You can get a basic knowledge of program development that will help you into the more difficult programming languages, should you be interested.

I've learned some C++, Java, and Perl. And personally if I can get it done in Python, I do. There isn't anything I've needed to do in the other languages yet, aside from basic web knowledge HTML/CSS/JS.