Web Development

Do you have any previous programming experience? If so, what languages?

If this is your first language, you should be interested in the basic techniques that are used in all programming (use of variables, opening objects, prompting for responses, retreiving data, updating records, displaying messages, formatting output, closing objects, cleaning up, etc). You can usually find discounted books for most languages at the big chain bookstores. These are marked down because they cover previous versions of a language, but they can serve as a starting place for a beginning programmer. Most of these include a CD with a compiler or equivalent, and code examples.

60% of the cell phones are now using linux and c / c++ for the devices, not the old java app route.
the linux kernel gives a better performance as do c and c++.

Palmetto is right,
learning the basics of programming itself will serve better than just learning the language.

here we have a discount computer book store. ( half price computer books ) if you have something like that where you are I would recommend going there and picking up a basic book on java, one designed for people with no programming knowledge.
then it will have a good core of programming basics included.

a point to concider when picking a language to write any code in:
os independant = interpreted = slow
( java, perl, vb, python )

os specific = not portable = vb = vc++

compiled languages will always give better performance, but they add a level of complexity if you need to have cross platform capability.
( c, c++, pascal, delphi, cobol, fortran, assembler )
cross platform has 2 solutions:
1) pick a widget set that supports all platforms
2) use a web app design, where it is through a webserver. [ most commonly an interpreted language ]

start learning how to program in in my opinion. It obscures all the basics. It's a bells and whistles language. C or Pascal to learn the basics then an OO environment. Seeing as Java is C/C++ based may be that would be a better start. Learn how to program first, then learn the fundamentals of OO with Java if you insist, though it would not be my default choice.
Note once you learn how to program, picking up a language is easy because you have the concepts to map the syntax to.

You want the best advice? Here it is:

Don't start with Java. In fact, don't bother learning it at all unless you have a specific need to do something with it (like translate something in Java to another language).

Better choices (in alphabetical order):
C/C++
Pascal
Perl
Python
Ruby

C or C++ will be thoroughly difficult languages to learn as a first language, but they're the languages that have been and will be the most solidly part of the IT industry for quite some time.

Pascal isn't the easiest language in the world to learn, but it's not the hardest, either. It's a compiled language, and leads easily into Object Pascal (also known as Delphi for those who use the Borland Delphi design environment) for object oriented programming. It tends to teach very good programming habits, but there aren't too many jobs out there for Pascal programmers these days.

Perl is the ubiquitous system administration language. If you're ever going to admin a unix system of any kind (AIX, Linux, *BSD, et cetera), you should learn it. It's also "the language that drives the web", as they say. It's really kind of a do-anything workhorse language, easy to use, easy to learn, and extremely flexible. Because of its flexibility, and tools like Perl's regular expressions engine, it's one of the most powerful languages around in terms of rapid, effective development. It doesn't produce executable binaries like C or Pascal, though, so if that's what you're looking for, you won't find it with Perl. Perl can do object oriented programming, but it doesn't have to.

Python is similar to Perl. It's a little more orderly to look at but, frankly, it makes my eyes bleed. Others swear by the "significant whitespace" feature of it, but I would really rather do without. It's not as ubiquitous as Perl, though it's getting closer. It's not nearly as necessary for the competent sysadmin as Perl, but it's useful. Some feel Python is much easier to learn and use than Perl, but I haven't had that experience with it. Like Perl, it does not compile to executable binaries. Python is an object oriented programming language, period.

Ruby is Perl for Python users, or Python for Perl users. It doesn't compile to executable binaries, and it is not as common/popular as Perl or Python: those two facts pretty much end the list of negatives for Ruby. Ruby is the easiest useful language to learn and use that I've ever seen. I love this language, and so does any other programmer that picks it up and plays with it for five minutes. It is a "pure" object-oriented language, more object-oriented than Python (which is in turn more object-oriented than Perl, C++, or Object Pascal). It's an extremely powerful language (similar reasons to Perl's power), and lots of fun (for programmers, at any rate).

I've made a lot of noise over executable binaries. Keep in mind that this is not a make-or-break feature of a language. For many tasks, binary compilation is important. For many tasks, binary compilation is actually a detriment -- such as the actual process of programming, because it becomes more difficult to test your code if you have to keep compiling it (for instance). Sometimes, people have sort of a bigotry about "compiled" versus "interpreted" languages, but ultimately what matters is whether the language is suited to your task.

Java, by the way, is on the wrong side of pretty much everything where the compiled-vs.-interpreted debate is concerned. It is bytecode-compiled, which means it's compiled to a sort of intermediary state that makes it less accessible than Perl or Ruby source code files, but it still requires a final compilation at runtime so that it does not get the same benefits as pre-compiled binaries like those created by C and Pascal compilers. Worse yet, Java requires a "Virtual Machine" to be running, else the bytecode won't compile and run, so there's this huge resource overhead from that slowing things down and mucking up your computer's performance in general.

If you want to get started learning programming with Ruby, I can point you at a couple of free, online resources:

Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide
http://www.rubycentral.com/book/index.html
This is written by one of the best programming teams available, who wrote that seminal work of good programming practice, The Pragmatic Programmer.

Daniel Carrera's Learning Ruby
http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/0.3/
It's a good starter/primer.

Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
http://www.poignantguide.net/ruby/
Another book online. It doesn't look bad at all, though I haven't looked at it in depth.

Learn to Program
http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=Contents
Yet another book online. This one is great for learning the very basics of object-oriented programming, and does it with Ruby as the example language. It's not so much about Ruby as about programming, though. Come to think of it, this might be exactly the one you need to get started. You'll need more than just this to be a competent programmer, though: you also need to start writing programs.

Another one:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ruby-doc-bundle/Tutorial/

Another one:
http://www.rubyist.net/~slagell/

I hope that helps.