Sign into an existing account

"The C Programming Language" by Kernighan and Ritchie is the best place to start.

I would use AI to learn over a book these days. AI is very powerful for learning.

if you want to spend your money on a book claiming you are a dummy, then these are for you.

Probably not worth messing with. Depends on what you want to do but I would download Python or maybe Deno and work from some YouTube getting started series. Those two languages are going to be very broadly applicable to a lot of the work being done these days. Eventually, if you want to do some systems programming then maybe pick up a memory-safe systems language like Rust. (I don't like Rust, fwiw.)

Grab a copy of AnythingLLLM or Open WebUI, learn what is RAG, and then feed all of the programming books you are interested in from LibGen.is into ollama local LLM and you are off to the races.

The combo of YouTube tutorials and RAG-enhanced local LLM is very effective.

I'd not bother with C/C++ at this point. (Yes, I know and have used both.) They are getting relegated to niche systems stuff where speed and binary size is more important than security. Just not going to be all the relevant to most folks and the core principles of how to program in procedural or OO style are not unique to those languages.

Just start with https://projecteuler.net/ and work the problems.
Python is the easiest language to get into.
You can pivot to another language once you have a purpose for it.

Mind that books for modern programming will go out of date quite quickly these days with the 3-year release cycle of major updates to two of the biggest, C++ and Java. A book should be good for the basics, but when it gets beyond how the language works and into how specific stuff is done, expect bad/insecure code depending on book age.

Getting into C++ is difficult but rewarding once you start to understand its theory of operation. If you can, try to learn the older C idioms alongside how C++ does the same stuff - C helps for understanding and it's still relevant for some popular/important libraries such as SQLite, and for doing microcontroller stuff. Keep cppreference.com open, noting that it annotates everything with the specific C++ versions. At some point, find a simple CMake tutorial.

Java and/or C# are large platforms and easier to get started. Java makes some sacrifices for portability, although C# portability can be good if you ensure that Mono can compile your stuff on Linux (Windows compiler is more picky, Mono will lack latest C# versions though).

Python is for gays, niggers and gay niggers.

No.
20 year dev.

Learn c# full stack.

Avoid frameworks.

Follow basic tutorial.

Build / make do.

Use stacked overflow and Microsoft learn sites.

Win

Maybe that fat one in the middle titled "Coding". Possibly none of them though.

Those books suck

Try this for now
https://youtu.be/RBSGKlAvoiM

So you admit that you are dumb? Mkay.

I've always thought books are just ok.

I'd maybe start with a few short online tutorials to quickly get basic concepts down in a guided way, then start building some small easy sample projects using AI to ask for help when you don't know how to do something.

The python one