Can I learn rudimentary programming from a book?

[dbot]

If you are interested in business programming, any of the object oriented languages would be fine(C++, Java, even Visual Basic). If you are interested in embedded development or game programming you should start with C.

If you are truly interested in learning to program, you should probably start with a book of algorithms such as this one, http://books.google.com/books?id=NLngYyWFl_YC&pg=PA15&dq=introduction+to+algorithms&psp=1&sig=jX-xfEDWJU3PprUwH8Qfxidli6M#PPP1,M1. If you can read this book and still have a desire to program, then learning the individual languages will be a lot easier.