C++ is just a language. Once you know one or two, you know them all with very little effort.

You can sit down and with a few google searches you can program in any new language in just a couple hours.

wmarone is correct though, that "programming" is 1/10th the work that actually goes on. Software engineering/architecture is another 60%. Probably the last 30% is spent researching and formulating solutions to problems.

For an absolute beginner who is serious, definitely recommend Java first. Once you write several program on your own, if you still need a challenge continue to C++.

Also the majority of companies have moved to Java for new projects except those which require maximum performance/minimum memory.

There are books for them too I actually learn better from reading books and exercising myself than listening to someone. But if anyone likes the latter more, Internet provides amazing solutions for them. Like:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#electric...mputer-science
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...2A527F83F7A5E4

If I can agree to your first part i can't to second.

Programming in 90% is the art of problem solving, 10% trying to avoid them but language is just a language

If you don't have soul of inventor you can learn any language but will never become Shakespeare, at least become programmer that typing in boring lines because you have learn them at school, because somebody else fund a solution to the problem. Same way as you can learn how to hold a pencil and draw some lines but is long way to become Picasso.

You have to answer the key question to yourself.
Do you like just type in some lines? Or just create your own, find new method, solution. The reality is like that. Schools mostly producing programmers, teaching you what and how to, closing your mind as well telling you what is good or not. If you have a passion you can call slip away this process and call yourself developer. But if you really has this passion you don't have to.

When you want to learn programming the language does not really matter. You need to be proficient in creating data structures describing the problem set and algorithmic patterns that work with those structures. The actual language is then selected to the requirements - which is a best tool to do the job.

Saying that, I need to mention that C/C++ is the granddady of most current structural languages. So if you know C++ you will learn Java, C#, Perl, PHP, etc. very quickly.

My opinion is that you should learn at least one structural programming language (C-like), one functional programming language (Scheme dialect) and one scripting programming language (possibly with duck-typing); at school. You will learn more by yourself as needed, afterall.

Java tends to be a good way to get into programming, though some people are thrown off by the fact that it takes an eternity just to get your first "Hello World" out there...

Haven't been into Python for long, but I guess that would be a good one for a beginner, too. Though there might be some complications when learning other languages from there on since the need for semicolons and braces will need some getting used to after using Python's indentation for a while.

Then again Python, other than Java, would have the additional advantage of being supported on Maemo (and MeeGo, I guess) with it's PyQt bindings.


As for university vs school vs books vs internet:

It mostly depends on the specific sources of information. Personally, University was a giant waste of time for me, since they spent a whole lot of time on teaching me extraordinarily useful things like the difference between infinity and double infinity...

But between all the superficially scientific crap I wasted part of my life on, there also was this one tutor aptly nicknamed "The Hacker" who taught me more about programming in half a semester than all the other classes in a couple of years.

Schools tend to be better on that account, since most of them try to teach you for life, not for some high and mighty title to put in front of your name. But of course her it still depends on whether you get the right teachers.

Personally, I've learned a lot from books, but from my experience only one out of ten books will actually make you UNDERSTAND what you're doing instead of simply making you copy their source code. One of those rare gems of programming books actually managed to teach me the big advantages of OOP - well into my first year of - until then pseudo-OO - Java programming.

Same with the net: Finding good tutorials there can be rather tedious, but if you DO find them, they might teach you a lot. Though whether you'll learn sensible, elegant programming that way is really questionable.

Best part about the net, though, is the fact that you don't have to spend any money, so you can learn as many languages as you want before deciding on the one that will be your flagship for a couple of years.


So, I'd say going for a school to learn the basics (project planning, writing clean and sensible code, how to write programs a user will actually feel comfortable handling) without specialising on any language at first.Then use the net to do some research, maybe try the languages easier to get into first and once you feel like you know your way around, only then specialise on any language.

You don't need to know much about data structures - that's why we have class libraries.

Compiler theories - do you really need to write compiler? Certainly not for mobile devices.

Operating systems - again, you probably don't need to write one.

For everything else, a set of books is probably a better investment of your time (and esp. money if you have access to a library) than going back to school.

Is it even possible to sling code without understanding it?

(for the sake if discussion I'm ignoring a lot of pre-existing Javascript and Perl code ;-).

For sure it's much easier to sleep at lectures without understanding the subject matter than it is to code without understanding how programming in general works. But, it all depends on your priorities, age, skills and how you want to use your time and/or money.

I'd say that C++ is one of the worst beginner languages there is. If you want to have a go at the kind of problem solving that goes into programming, have a look at Python or Java. This will give you a cleaner entry point when it comes to object oriented programming and object oriented modelling of the problem domain.

C++ is a Swiss army knife with rotating lasers attached at both ends and the power is weak in almost every programmer out there (me included) leading to unmaintainable projects and hard to track down bugs.

C++ adds several opaque layers and you as the programmer either stick to writing "Hello world!" programs or you need to actually understand all these "behind the scene" actions that are taking place. Some say this is the power of C++, I say this is one of the biggest flaws of it. Transparency is the key to proper understanding of things.

And, I know, this isn't a popular view on C++. But I draw from my experiences and my education and I can see no reason to start out with dual wielded laser swords when a simple hammer will do.

These days a fairer consideration would be the Qt style C++, which isn't really much harder than Java.