anyone have any worthwhile suggestions?

I know I'm going to sound like an idiot but here it goes can anyone point me in the right direction for learning the simplest basics for writing code, changing code, and hacking? I've seen a lot of different threads saying to start somewhere and almost everyone of them is different I only ask because I don't want to start wrong get used to it then come back to find out that I've been doing it all wrong and have to start over. or if you have the time and patience could someone try to teach me? thanks for all the help -Ju5t1n

https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/programming
http://www.codecademy.com/

Go for those recognized IT certifications class and test :

Microsoft Certification : http://www.microsoft.com/learning

Oracle Training : http://education.oracle.com

IBM Professional Certification Program : http://www.ibm.com/certify

Start with simple programming such as HTML and CSS, it will get you in the mindset of writing code, from there spread it out, start using JavaScript, using the aforementioned 'codeacademy.com' very, very good.

Once you learned Javascript, you'll have a better understanding of loops and if statements for example, then from there you can pick another language, Object Orientated is generally very popular with languages such as Java and C++ available to you, both very widely used. Minecraft being the best example of Java and Linux being and example of C++. All these tutorials are available online for free and of course books.

Check out w3schools.com for HTML, CSS and Javascript, not always the best website, but great to get you going.

Hope this helps, sorry for the wall of text.

>>4

Wall of text... Really, if the kid can't get through that, then he isn't going to be able to do shit to learn programming. Don't apologize for adding content.

>>1
My recommendation would be to learn Python. Maybe not master it, but use it as a tool to learn the basics of programming. It's a very easy language to learn and used by professionals and hobbiests alike.
After that, you can learn a higher up language. Java is a good place, since it's applicable in a ton of different areas. You can also learn C++, but that will be harder to learn than Java by a bit.

Start out writing small programs, learn the basic syntax and the concepts behind if statements, for loops, variables, and then on to methods, objects, to writing a full program that can handle quite a bit.
Once you've gotten the concepts down, learned how to break problems down into pseudo-code, you can start writing real applications because half of it will all become second nature to the point where you just write the code and put little thought into it.

It'll take some time to get there, but keep at it, possibly take some classes at a community college or something to give you a good push, and before you know it you'll be writing programs like nobody's business.