How to learn Programming?

Since you want games, two languages will be your very start: C and Python. C is pretty old, but, once understood, will lead to c++, php, and many other languages. C is still used in many game programming, because of its efficiency. (It is also used to develop every product from Microsoft - not a reference, I must admit).

Start off with learning C. The easiest way to learn programming is by taking 2 classes at a community college or picking up a book. If you wanna do text based games, you're gonna have to learn php and mysql. If you want to get into this profession you have to start from scratch like everyone else does. In the beginning its hard, but after you learn a few things you'll be like "Oh, this was easy".

nobody has mentioned javascript for text based games, but you can make loads of games with javascript. you can program hangman, anagrams, lottery games, maths games, quiz games, ping pong in fact just about anything apart from 3D stuff.

Well, hard question about what is the easiest language to learn. I would say Visual Basic is, even though I have not used it at all. The other candidates are: C or C++, but you have to learn about allocating memory and deallocating memory, as well as other little traps you can fall into. So this may prove to be a bit harder than you thought. Java, but then you have to learn about Object Oriented Programming. If you have no idea what this means, or cannot understand it after you have learnt a little bit, then you are going to get into trouble. As for php, javascript, etc, these are web based languages, so you would need to either have a php server, and/or build web pages so you can see the results. This would entail learning HTML or similar so you can write a web page. Doing a course on programming may be the better way to learn. This way the course will teach you at least 1 language, and hopefully be able to teach you how programming works (which is essential to understanding and being able to learn new languages). Buying some books would require you to know what language you want to learn. But there are some simple books out there that may help you. Since you want to do text based games, a series of books that do a few languages are called "Beginning <langauage> Through Game Programming". So these books may be good to get. 2 examples of this series of books are called Beginning C++ Through Game Programming Beginning Java Through Game Programming Here are some other answers that might help you out. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ap266mopgEgiG3LguzUosjvty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20061106103328AAMzv9R http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AilIl6S.ar_NtXWeyscRymzty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070311190036AA8psBo http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsCRmyurNEd.iktRii0UYBbty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090822153304AA2TO4V Good luck with it.