thanks. but i think i'll go with C for now. thanks for the advice though

If he gets a good book, he should stay clear of pointers and memory management for quite a lot of chapters ;)

If you're interested in programming games, you can get quick results from a higher level language than C, like Python (and PyGame). It can take a lot more work to get anything done in C, which can be troublesome if you're not driven enough to learn how to use it. That said, if you enjoy programming games, it would be extremely beneficial to learn C! I highly recommend the book: "The C Programming Language" by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie. It's known as the K&R book and it's a great introduction to the language's nuances.

Anyway, good luck, programming can be extremely rewarding! :)

It depends what you want to do and what tradeoffs you want to make in flexibility/simplicity/performance. Commercial games are usually (if not always) written in C/C++ with some ASM routines. Simple games, esp for mobile phones and the like are often developed in Java. For rapid application development you might want something like Python.

Basically, it doesn't matter what language you "learn" because no language is the best tool for every job, and it's fairly easy to learn new languages after you've learned one, particularly the most popular ones.

I guess I'd have to say Java. A couple things about it is that 1) You'll get results faster, which can be more encouraging especially in the beginning. It's a lot harder to impress yourself with beginner's C. 2) C can teach you a lot of bad habits if you learn it as a first language. Before Java people might suggest Pascal for that reason.

I started with QBasic to understand the concepts. Then Java, then C, and now I'm learning C++.

i was eventually planning on programming games afterward, but first i want to learn some basics

Sure, I understand. I guess what I'm trying to say is that learning to program can be discouraging at first, say like when you've done a lot of work to simply print some text on the screen. Higher level languages like Python can simplify things so that you stay interested. :)

It's not that I'm trying to say that C or Java are bad languages to start with, it's just that if you're really very new to programming, learning the concepts of data structures and algorithms can be easier using high level languages instead of fighting with the more difficult syntax of C or Java. That's all!

Java - simple games

C+ - small games and programs

Objective-C - For the iPhone, ipods and Imacs

Python - Games. a good program for 3d "stuff" would be blender

C is a little more difficult since it is low level and you have to really understand pointers and memory allocation. Pointers can be a pain if you aren't careful. Core dumps == hair pull.

C# and Java are good all around languages and JIT compilation and compiler optimizations are helping them to achieve great speeds. You can do some XNA stuff in C# if you are looking to do some simple game development. There is even a game engine for you to use.

I did some home tinkering in when i was younger in QBASIC and i learned Intel Assembly Language on a 8085 processor trainer in school, but trust me, those are not the things to learn.

I would have to recommend java.