Can I learn rudimentary programming from a book?

[NJ5]

starcraft said:
OK!!!! WOW!!!

I thought I was all set, then I go out drinking for just a few hours and a war has started.

First of all I would like to thank everyone for their enthusiasm and input. Based on what has been said I would like to ask some questions.

As someone said, I am a clean slate with an interest in programming. But I do not pretend to have endless willpower. Please bear in mind that if you put me up to something that is too difficult or too intimidating FIRST, it is quite possible I will go off the idea.

That in mind, SHOULD I be starting with Java? If I do, is it really likely that I will develop bad habits I cannot easily break even if I am aware of the need to avoid doing so in advance?

In the beginning, you'll be mostly doing basic stuff which will be almost equal whether in Java, C, C++ or C#. So between those, your choice won't really matter much. (arithmetic expressions, statements, function calls, loops and simple data types are almost the same thing in all of them)

To answer your last question:

When you get to the point where you're using more complicated stuff like dynamic memory allocation, it pays to know that Java includes garbage collection (as C# does) whereas languages like C and C++ usually don't. Garbage collection essentially means that you don't have to worry about freeing allocated memory, as that will happen automatically. If you get too used to garbage-collection and then do the jump to a language which doesn't have it, your programs will probably leak memory until you get the hang of it.