It really depends on what you're planning on doing with the programming skills.
Basic is a good start to simple programming, however.
If you have any interest in programming video games, C++ is apparently still pretty common, at least according to Wikipedia's article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_programming#Programming_languages] on the subject.
Java is also good for simpler video games, and for web design.
These days, the programming language I tend to use the most often is Perl. Perl and shell scripting are incredibly useful if you're going to look for a job as a network administrator (I'm NOT a net admin, but I work closely with one). My use of Perl is primarily for manipulating data.
Tip for aspiring computer/network admins: automate as much of your job as you can with CAREFULLY TESTED scripts. Even if it takes eight hours to make a script for a task that takes ten minutes of your time each week, you'll regain that time in under a year if you continue using the script. Plus, automated executions are less prone to error than a human attempting the task.
Example 1: I had a list of computer serial numbers, which I compared to a text export of the output of a computer auditing program; the script compared the serial numbers on the list to the export file, filled in information about the computers into a tab-delimitated output file, and then I fed the file into a spread sheet, and was able to list, in order, the performance level of each workstation. It took about five hours to create the script from scratch, which is a fraction of the time it would have taken to compile the list by hand. Plus, the automated nature makes user-error less likely.
Example 2: I had to pare down a list of voters, since the County sent the School District I work in thousands of voter names/addresses who weren't actually in the District (and, thus, weren't eligible to vote on the School Budget). I acquired a list of addresses for the tax rolls, and wrote a Perl script to compare the addresses on the voter list to the address on the tax roll list. It took 16 hours or so of work to create the script. It would have taken over 40 hours to examine the list by hand. Plus, the script can be reused, and will take about ten seconds on subsequent executions.
Learning about Regular Expressions will also be incredibly valuable to you in any tech-based career. I'm just beginning to grasp the surface of Regex). Being able to save your bosses secretary eight hours of monotonous work and turn that task into a script that takes five seconds to execute is a good way to stay employed. Just document your code thoroughly, so that you'll know what the heck it does when you come back to it two years later...
Basic is a good start to simple programming, however.
If you have any interest in programming video games, C++ is apparently still pretty common, at least according to Wikipedia's article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_programming#Programming_languages] on the subject.
Java is also good for simpler video games, and for web design.
These days, the programming language I tend to use the most often is Perl. Perl and shell scripting are incredibly useful if you're going to look for a job as a network administrator (I'm NOT a net admin, but I work closely with one). My use of Perl is primarily for manipulating data.
Tip for aspiring computer/network admins: automate as much of your job as you can with CAREFULLY TESTED scripts. Even if it takes eight hours to make a script for a task that takes ten minutes of your time each week, you'll regain that time in under a year if you continue using the script. Plus, automated executions are less prone to error than a human attempting the task.
Example 1: I had a list of computer serial numbers, which I compared to a text export of the output of a computer auditing program; the script compared the serial numbers on the list to the export file, filled in information about the computers into a tab-delimitated output file, and then I fed the file into a spread sheet, and was able to list, in order, the performance level of each workstation. It took about five hours to create the script from scratch, which is a fraction of the time it would have taken to compile the list by hand. Plus, the automated nature makes user-error less likely.
Example 2: I had to pare down a list of voters, since the County sent the School District I work in thousands of voter names/addresses who weren't actually in the District (and, thus, weren't eligible to vote on the School Budget). I acquired a list of addresses for the tax rolls, and wrote a Perl script to compare the addresses on the voter list to the address on the tax roll list. It took 16 hours or so of work to create the script. It would have taken over 40 hours to examine the list by hand. Plus, the script can be reused, and will take about ten seconds on subsequent executions.
Learning about Regular Expressions will also be incredibly valuable to you in any tech-based career. I'm just beginning to grasp the surface of Regex). Being able to save your bosses secretary eight hours of monotonous work and turn that task into a script that takes five seconds to execute is a good way to stay employed. Just document your code thoroughly, so that you'll know what the heck it does when you come back to it two years later...