Hello. I am wanting to learn how to program. I plan on taking this quite seriously as well. I am in college right now, and I will soon be going into some of the main courses of my major(computer science). I have a semester before I start any programming classes, but i would like to get a head start on some stuff. Besides, I would like to know for sure if I both can, and want to, be a programmer for the rest of my life. I'm afraid I can't give any specifics as to what type of programming I would like to do.(database, network, systems analysis,applications, games,...heck I have no clue), as I am unfamiliar with the subject. Anyway, before I really get into this in college, I'd like to know if this is actually a good idea for me. I believe the best way to go about doing this is to actually try it out a bit and get a feel for what programming is all about. It seems interesting. I'd just like to find out for myself. Now, on to my question: I have a couple of books about C, and a compiler. So as of right now, this seems like a possible language to start with. However, although I hear C is a very important language, I've also heard it isn't the best language to start learning with. A few people have said it is a rather difficult first language. But in both books I have, the authors say that the books were written for those with no programming knowledge. One author does come out and say that C is not one of the easier languages to learn. He also said that its not the hardest, and it is possible to learn with C. But what do you think? Please give me some of your opinions. Thanks for reading this post.

I am learning to program in C right now. It is not inpossible to begin with but I am very glad that I took the time to learn pascal FIRST. Pascal is pretty simple, but gives you a good grounding for most any language. I would recommend starting with pascal. But ask around, I'm sure others may have different thoughts and pearls of wisdom to share with you. Regards.

Yes, Definitely give Pascal a look. It was developed as a teaching language, and although it is not the flavour of the decade, it teaches you good programming habits. You will probably have to move onto C or at least C++ or VB, since these languages are the ones clients want. regards, Peter Rolls

c is okay to start with so long as you practice good programming techniques, such as structured programming. The c library functions provide very good examples of excellant c structure..so it is worth looking at their code.