Does anyone know of any good beginners programming courses just to learn the basics?

I am looking to learn just the basics and see if it something that I might like to pursue more later. There is some classes at the local community college but I was curious to know if there is any online courses or self teaching that are decent also that I may consider trying. With a busy schedule at work and home it may be more convenient to try something from home if that is even a possibility. If anyone has taken a course online or self taught themselves and enjoyed it and learn a lot, I would appreciate any information and links to look into it more. Thanks for reading and look forward to reading your answers.

Does anyone know of any good beginners programming courses just to learn the basics?
Some people need to take a class, some can learn from a book.





Visual BASIC might not be too bad. There are many many books out for this at the beginner level. There are forums on the Internet where you can ask questions.





The problem with Visual BASIC is that it's a Windows language so you have to learn a lot of Windows stuff along with BASIC. But it's all very straighforward, it just makes the learning curve a little steeper at first.





Regular BASIC would be a little easier, maybe, but it would only work inside a window in text only. BASIC was originally designed as a beginners language (Beginners' All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).





There's another language called Python that was designed for learning, also it's -free-! You can download it, also tutorials.





I wouldn't recommend the C language as a first language. I would learn to program first in another language, and you could take your programming skills with you to C. C is a little tricky.





Programming is not really hard. I found it a lot of fun! In fact it gets downright addictive. Good luck!
Reply:I would check out Python or Java because you can just download the dev kit/interpretor and they are both pretty easy languages to learn. Python has a ton of little tutorials online.
Reply:Probably the best way to get started initially is a do it yourself approach. You don't have to go solo. You can ask for help from other people, and talk to other programmers. It's just that online courses or community classes at the absolute beginner level are not only just bad, but quite often dangerously so. (Poor teaching sucks out motivation, bad or out of date teaching material, etc.).





You can get started with programming for free. Actually, what matters is the person who's going to learn programming. The prerequisites are as follows. You need a decent command of the the written English language. If your reading comprehension is poor, or you abhor reading, you won't do well as a programmer. You need to be able to Google, and generally look for information yourself on websites. As silly as this requirement sounds, many people fail here. And you also need to enjoy thinking challenges. Programming is a means to an end, where the end is constructing something. Getting good at all of the above is something you learn, and can't really be taught.





You should pick a programming language first, as without knowing one, you can't really learn the abstract concepts in computer science. There is no best language, but there are general guidelines for a first language. Prefer high level languages. High level languages offer a great level of abstraction from the machine. They allow you to express your human logic far easier than a lower level language, which require you to express logic more in the language of the machine. Stick with a mainstream language. You will need resources and help, that's for certain. The more people using a language, the more resources there are. Popularity of a language is a very good gauge. Also, pick a language that is actually useful. You will want to use that language to write practical applications. It needs to have GUI libraries, networking libraries, database connectivity, and all sorts of things that define a practically useful programming language. The general recommendations (from me) are Python and Ruby. C# and Java are a few steps down in ease of learning, but they are also good choices.





C and C++ are bad choices for a beginner. They are system level languages, and they are very complex. They also have a number of tracks for the absolute beginner.





Feel free to ask for help on IT and developer forums. I know that daniweb.com and forums.devshed.com are frequented by experienced professionals. Your language of choice may have forums dedicated to it as well. For example, C# has the MSDN forums. C and C++ are usually supported by general programming forums, but MSDN and cboard.cprogramming.com are additional forums as well. The level of technical help on a forum can make a difference between whether you succeed or give up with a programming language.