hibikir on 27 February 2008
Starting with C++ today is lunacy: There's too many complicated subsystems to learn at once.
Start with a scripting language, like Python or Perl. You can learn procedural programming basics without worrying about the details. It also doesn't tie you down to one platform, like visual basic does. My Perl code runs the same way in Linux, Windows and OSX. Go do that with VB.
Make sure you try to do something other than your typical 50 line exercises though: There's many things that are perfectly fine in small little programs, but would cause immense trouble on 50,000 lines, and make 500,000 lines impossible. You don't want to learn bad habits.
