Programming Beginner

While this may be the thousandth iteration of this thread, I can't find a similar thread on the front page and would appreciate advice from people who don't enjoy graphing their forum post counts and other cock-stuffing behavior.

I want to learn a programming language or learn a set of programming languages that will best allow me to understand the principles of programming while allowing me to start developing simple programs within a few months. Do you guys have any language recommendations and any learning resources for them?

My aims are really to develop some simple programs for my little brother who is physically disabled and has some mental problems and get him interested in programming too. He's not going to have a normal life like most people and I think the freedom of the internet along with the minimal amount of resources needed to work on projects using computers would be a great asset to him; however, a family member would have to teach him the basics as he's not trusting of new people and unless one of us takes him through the basics of it all and can help him with problems/discuss ideas he will probably get quite disheartened doing it on his own. I'm interested in programming too, of course, but ultimately I want to do it so my brother and I have something to do together for years to come and to make him more independent.

So yeah, I welcome any responses.
Many thanks,
Anon

Read SICP

>>2
This is looking like a great resource. Thank you. Just to ease my choice, would you recommend LISP to start with as it seems like this is what they will focus on in SICP?

Thanks,
Anon

>>3
http://www.gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/

Disregard >>2,4 SICP and Lisp are in-jokes.
Start with Python. It is simple, very readable, easy to learn and  supports many programming paradigms. It has great documentation and you can find resources for it all over the web, seeing as it's really popular right now . It's just an all around great first language to learn, especially for ``hobbyists".
You can try >>4 and all the complicated stuff later.

Scheme and Python are both excellent first languages.

>>4
>>6
scheme
Yeah, sure.  Nothing like finishing a line without closing parentheses and then having to backtrack all the open parentheses left to close them in the last line.  BTW, I'm being sarcastic, scheme is a shitty language and you're shitty for even thinking of recommending it even if you were trying to troll

Learn python OP.
Here's a good start:
https://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/

Disregard >>5,7 for they are confused about what they say. SICP is not a joke and Scheme is for people who know how to harness the power of a proper code editor.

>>7
BTW, I'm being sarcastic, scheme is a shitty language and you're shitty for even thinking of recommending it even if you were trying to troll
/prog/ has been recommending Scheme and SICP for years. You must be new here.

>>9
Not new, I just don't care for trolls and pseudo-memes.

>>10
I just don't care for trolls and pseudo-memes.
Then what are you doing here?
trollsmailto:noko
(　≖‿≖)

>>11
I'm starting to learn programming and I browse 4chan.
So the obvious next choice to make is to post on /prog/ more regularly.

JavaScript

>>12
Read SICP, seriously.

>>14
Maybe once they rewrite the book to use a non-archaic language like ruby or python.

>>15
Then you'll never achieve Satori.

>>14,16
This isn't reddit

I don't know if you think you're downvoting my thread by saging your posts or something, but it doesn't work like that here

>>17
To the imageboards.

>>14
Shut up. Seriously

>>9
And you still can't get hired by people like me.

>>17
9/10, I almost fapped.

This thread makes FrozenButts appear delicate and tasteful.

Perhaps >>1-san should begin with a fine LISP dialect such as Racket.

I AM THE KING OF FARTS, BOW DOWN AND SMELL MY HEAVENLY ODORS

I AM THE KING OF FARTS, BOW DOWN AND SMELL MY HEAVENLY ODORS

>>20
Well obviously, if you don't post job openings in LISP Jobs.