Be Excellent To Each Other

Since i'm recently unemployed and all of sudden with too much time on my hands, i've decided it's a good time to learn a new skill. Learning a programming language seemed like an obvious choice.

I'm sure this forum is full of tech savvy people that could give me some recommendations of what would b the best choice to start. I'm not looking a make a videogame or something like that, i just want to learn something that might become useful for getting a new job, instead of learning to play the guitar or something.

My skills as far as programming goes are restricted to using basic in excel, and i know languages like c++ are way harder. What should i try? C++ or C#? SQL?

I remember a thread in this forum about some website that teached programming languages in a goal/gaming-like oriented way. Anyone remembers it?

I found vb.net easy to learn using a Learn in 24 Hours book but more people use C#.

SQL is going to be of use anywhere though.

this seems great, but looks more oriented to web development languages. And sorry for the probably very stupid question, but is it important to know html nowadays? I thought there were many tools to develop websites and such.

Code academy will teach you the basic principles that you can use in any language though.

NoSQL databases say "hi".

And everyone normal replies 'Hi. Who the fuck are you?"

And IndexedDB developers cry into their cornflakes wondering why the fuck they were saddled with a stupidly abstract API when WebSQL was more than up to the job

I would say learn Python or C#. I see codeacademy does Python. Learn it there.

You could also try KhanAcademy. I've used their matsh and science videos before, and their programming lessons look reasonable.

Really though, aside from a small amount of learning syntax (which might be you first obstacle as a newbie), learning to program is simply practice, practice, practice. So write lots of programs

Here's a nice list of initial projects outside of the academies lessons. I always suggest a text adventure to people as a first project on their own. Start with a single room. Then add some more rooms and the ability to walk between them. Then maybe add items. Then add more rooms, which will probably require you to change the way you think and handle rooms etc etc.