I'm new to programming: which language?

As the title says, I'm new to programming, I've only ever done basic and slightly advanced  Windows DOS language, and I know that is pretty limited in what it can/can't do. I hear that CL/Scheme are the main languages on this board, but I've also heard that they're old and obsolete, someone even told me that Lisp can't call external programs, is that true?

A couple people told me Python was a good language to learn, and I know a lot of programs are written in C/C++, and I've heard of some olders ones like COBOL, FORTRAN, Haskell, and a few others.

I've heard of these dynamic and static typing things, and I believe strong and weak typing, can anyone explain the difference? I've been involved in computers for most of my life, and I think it's time to advance my computer skills, and I could think of no better place than 4chan's /prog/, namely because I don't know of any other places, so....

Can /prog/ help me?

>>7
I don't understand how things aren't written in C, I thought Windows was C-based?
What >>3 is getting at is that lots of programs are written in C and lots in C++, but that there is no such thing as C/C++. Which in turn hints at the fact that while many people think them to be more or less the same thing, the two languages are really completely different, much more so than they seem to be at first glance.

The only differences I know between C and Sepples, I lurk /prog/ on the occasion, is that C is fast and lightweight, and Sepples is bloated and can be slow,
Correct so far...
but has about every library you'd ever need.
Not by itself if doesn't. Now if you'd mean "there are many libraries available specifically for C++", there is some truth in that.

SICP, that enormous fucking manual from some university using Scheme as the teaching language?
The one and only. Not a bad book by any means, but certainly not an easy one either.
FIOC = Frame input/output controller?
That too, but >>3 probably meant The Forced Indentation Of Code, a python book.
K&R = The book The C Programming Language ?
Yup.

As for actual advice, it doesn't really matter what language you learn to program in; you should ultimately learn several, and the order isn't important. So pick a language you feel comfortable about (python is a fine choice, I don't know enough ruby to judge it in this matter), learn programming using it (which is not the same at all as learning the language!), and then go learn some other languages. If you want to be serious about programming, you should at least learn C, a scripting language like python, and a functional language like lisp.