I started with Basic and Moved to C++ and then went on to find out that the College AP exam was not C++ anymore but Java(in 2004 dunno what it is now). Anyway aside from a couple differences the two were very similar.

Eh, and I guess you aren't going to listen to me when I say you really should take a class if you intend to actually make programs.

When I was in college my roomie and I were taking a class in C++ and we pulled an all nighter doing our homework. I finished mine and a couple of hours later she hadn't got hers running yet. She had a tantrum and almost threw her laptop out the window, literally. I had to grab it out of her hands. Then I sat down and looked through her code and was like "Semicolon"

If you aren't gonna take a class, at least find someone who knows how to do it to help you.

ugh its been so long since I've thought about this stuff. I first learned basic when I was 11 and my family encouraged me to learn more programming until eventually by the time I was out of high school I was sick of it and didn't want to do it anymore and ended up being completely lost as to what I wanted to do with my life. I took that one class in college and thats the last I've had to do with it.

VB

I've found that Java is the best language to start out with. It keeps things very straight forward and doesn't break its own rules too often so it's easier to pick up the logic behind everything.

I'd strongly recommend Visual Basic(VB). It's most useful for business type programming (databases etc.), but you can do just about anything with it and it's quite easy to learn. The programming concepts you learn will carry over to pretty much any other language and many beginner books (if you're learning on your own) will even use some directdraw/3D functions and game examples. You'll want to move on to C/C++ etc. eventually, but VB is somewhat designed as a learning language, yet still more capable than many give it credit for.

 How is VB more useful for business type programming? That's complete and utter jibberish.

 VB is SHIT.  Yes you can do a lot with it.  But you can't do it well.

 Learn almost any other language and you are better off. 

Java + Textpad is all you need to start. It is all free and will build your foundation for everything else.

I work in Java. I'm actually making my first game right now. I'll be sure to post a link to this possible GOTY when I'm done.

I started with C++ oddly enough (damn engineering program) then learned visual basics (computer systems program) right now im doing SQL which is database programming.

Visual BASIC feels like a good place to start cause you can actually see what your doing in a descriptive manner.

 I think this need to be emphasised further. While I'm not really going to suggest a starting point (personally I would use C++, but most languages are fine), may I suggest that after you get a feel for what you are doing, that you seriously need to at least get a basic grasp of what happens 'under the hood'.

I've been teaching C++ programming to uni students for almost 4 years now and the student who stand out are the ones that understand what is going on behind their code. This is one reason why I dislike the idea of universities making Java their primary language for Compsci students. Java covers up too much of the low level stuff, and whlie this if fine if you already understand it, people who don't tend to write less efficent code (although some of the stuff i've seen is amazingly creative :P).