Quantum said:
I'm thinking of starting to learn programming just to play with when bored. Nothing professional. What language would be recogmended?
I have seen serious discussions on this topic at many places. The conclusion I got to is:
Most *experienced* people (well versed in many languages, and good real-life experience in all of them) recommend starting out with
Python, if you don't have any programming background. It has OO (Object Oriented) Programming support, and a good number of other programming constructs too : good for a newbie.
I personally don't recommend starting out with *any* form of BASIC (people _still_ do QuickBasic ... ), except for Visual Basic.NET. The GOTOs really spoil your design skills.
If you have _some_ programming experience (BASIC even), then I recommend
Java or
C++. Java is pure OO, but C++ gives you more flexibility in terms of memory management (good for real-life design, where majority of projects are still done in C).
Once you are good in one of the above languages, you can move on to GUI development, and RAD (Rapid Application Development) environments, with Visual C#.NET, Visual Basic.NET or plain win32/MFC programming in Visual C++. [ I assume you intend to develop on Windows platform .. not a good assumption though
].