Personally I don't have a great deal of knowledge on the coding front but certainly keen to learn. Right now I have some HTML knowledge and a little CSS too. If I was to learn a new language what would you recommend? I know that there are things like Javascript, PHP and a few others but what would be a a good starting point (excluding HTML and CSS) and what would be the pros and cons of using it online? Thanks in advance for any help guys ^^

I'd recommend giving this thread a read
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/coding...d-i-learn.html

If you want to learn a 'web' language then PHP is a great place to start. If you want to learn something else Java lends itself fairly well to new comers. The syntax for both of these languages is similar so learning one will help you on your way to learning the other.

I must say, I never bothered to learn JavaScript... I need to learn it. I would recommended that you learn JavaScript THEN PHP... JavaScript adds functionality to HTML and such if I'm right...

I'd suggest PHP first, personally I'm not a big fan of the fancy terms used by Javascript. PHP is quite easy to get into, though, provided you start small.

If your interested in application design, I suggest Autoit. Its quite simple, entirely code-written programming language for Windows only. Pretty fun

You definitely will want to go to PHP now. PHP is an EXTREMELY simple language yet has MMMMAAAANNNNNYYYY functions and is quite flexible so it won't matter as much if you screw up. All great things for a beginner.
PHP is a lot like most other languages and learning it will help you learn most other languages. After learning PHP I'd suggest learning JavaScript. Why not JavaScript first? I think it's a better idea to learn functionality before how to make things flashy.. Better a site that is really function yet not flashy than a site that is flashy but yet does nothing. Also you can use a database with PHP to create dynamic content.. Like forums, logins, etc.
After PHP you should start out in C++. Once you learn C++ you'll pretty much know the basics of almost all programming languages because most languages borrow a lot of basic programming concepts from C++. Don't learn C though.. After C++ (console C++ i forgot to mention) you should learn C# using Microsoft Visual Studios. It allows you to create windows in the Windows OS. It's not all that powerful and it's not really meant for huge projects but it's great if you want to start programming in Windows.
After all this you can start branching out however you like. In whatever order you want you should learn Java, ASP, AJAX (not really a language.. but meh..), ActionScript (flash), Perl, etc.
And during all this you need to be learning about computers. Learn about how the TCP/IP protocal works, what hardware does what, maybe build your own PC. If you learn how your computer works you can make your programs much more efficient and have a greater understanding of how everything sort of plugs-in in computing.
Good luck.
O yer PS: GET BOOKS FOR ALL THE LANGUAGES I JUST SAID BESIDES JAVASCRIPT!! TUTORIALS ARE USUALLY OUTDATED AND UNPROFESSIONAL. YOU'LL LEARN THE LANGUAGES WRONG!!!

I forgot to mention, besides learning languages, you should really be trying to learn concepts in programming. Its more important to understand OOP than it is to be able to build objects in C++. C++ is an aging language so you don't want to be relying on your C++ skills 5, 10 years from now.

Don't set out to learn a bunch of lanaguages because most likely you'll end up having a very limited knowledge of each and not be an expert in any. Chances are if you really know java, you'll also know a bit of C++ and PHP just by default.

Don't set out to learn a bunch of lanaguages because most likely you'll end up having a very limited knowledge of each and not be an expert in any. Chances are if you really know java, you'll also know a bit of C++ and PHP just by default.

This is true.
Trying to learn too many languages at once will only lead to headaches in the future as people tend to assume that if you say you can use PHP or C++, that you're able to build big flashy apps with them.
It's better to spend time learning one language before trying to take up another.
PHP, C++, Java and C# are pretty similar syntactically, so starting out with PHP will introduce some of the basics of these languages.

When I started using PHP, I had a vague knowledge of how C-like languages worked despite me using Borland Delphi for desktop applications.
When I first tried Ruby on Rails, the different syntax put me off, which made learning it a bit more problematic to begin with.

I'd reccomend PHP and HTML. they're really good programming languages, and if you learn PHP, you also learn a little bit of C++, ASP and other programming languages.

I agree that for webbased stuff you might teach yourself how to code in PHP and get some knowledge of MySQL in case you need to set up databases. HTML is more or less obligatory in my opinion, as you will no doubt have to use it at some point.

Originally Posted by NullPointer

I forgot to mention, besides learning languages, you should really be trying to learn concepts in programming.

NullPointer says it all here. Knowing a language is easy. Knowing how to program well is not. Let me show you something in pseudocode (not an actual language, but demonstration of the logic behind it):

FOR each integer between 1 and 1000000000
  IF (I am in a good mood)
    PRINT the current integer
  END IF
END FOR

Now, compare that to

IF (I am in a good mood)
  FOR each integer between 1 and 1000000000
    PRINT the current integer
  END FOR
END IF

In the first code example, the computer has to ask whether you're in a good mood 1000000000 times. In the second, only once. These are called loop invariant conditions. Learning why you need to pay attention to such things is very important and it doesn't matter which language you know.

So, learn to code and pick a language which supports OOP (that's Object-Oriented Programming). I say an OOP-supporting language (such as PHP 5, C++, Ruby, etc.) because they promote, generally-speaking, better programming style than procedural-only languages.

As another bit of information for you to consider, take this into account: I have literally, not figuratively, forgotten more languages than I know now. It takes me about a week to learn a new language b/c all I need to know is how the syntax changes and what the native objects are. I can then, with the assistance of a reference manual, code anything I want by simply writing out the appropriate logic using the syntax of the new language. Unlike spoken & written languages, programming languages confine themselves to logic and a very similar syntactical structure (for the most part, an exception almost always exist and most certainly does in programming languages), so learning how to "think like a computer" will get you much further in your programming adventures.

Here's to your success!

I would go with the PHP 100% and will take a little of RubyOnRails, Forget about .Net or ColdFusion its a dead end. At the same time learn Javascript and XML, very important now by doing that u will become an AJAX programmer. I understand many people does not like fancy dynamic sites, I am not a big fan of them too but clients (Who pays BIG bucks love AJAX because u can always say GOOGLE does it!) SO its up to u.
I personally like old fashion sites but when we start talking about the WEB2.0 Applications - AJAX is the way to go.

Start with PHP, all things good on the internet use php (mainly). the top sites in the world are php based...look at google, and youtube.

I learnt html, then css, and now in the middle of php. w3schools are great for beginners

the top sites in the world are php based...look at google

Apparently much of the Google code is python

still must be php based, indexing and what not.

Why?

Python is an extremely capable OOP language that doesn't have to run in the context of a webserver.

Running a standard webserver and a scripting language would be far too slow for the response times that Google needs.

fair enough, so would that be the same with all web search engines

Maybe maybe not.

MSN runs on IIS (obviously), so is probably coded in C/C++ and .net technologies

Yahoo was running on Zeus a few years ago, it now looks like they are running on a "home brewed" webserver.


The likelyhood of the main engines running on a server side scripting language is remote.
The likes of Amazon & Ebay use custom coded DLLs and modules to cope with the kind of volume where scripting languages would soon run into problems.