Know absolutely nothing about programming but want to learn etcetera...
Used computers all my life but know nothing about the codes inside them. I keep coming up with ideas for computer programs which are based on a few simple tasks or calculations which I think a computer could do but I have no idea how to implement them. I think I should get to the level of making a simple card game or something. Then work my way up to making scripts, something that could open up opera browser, search through a site for certain links, open them up and search for pieces of text and put them into a spreadsheet. That would be useful for my stock market research.
For now though I am a complete pleb and don't even know what software I need or how to take the first step. Here are some links I found that I will look at.
http://kickassproxy.me/beginning-programming-with-c-for-dummies-wiley-2014-pdf-golu-t9390415.html
http://it-ebooks.info/book/1256/
C++ or java maybe
I would start out by really lowering your expectation and goals. A space flight simulator is waaaay out of you league. If it's a 3D one then it's going to take me at least a month to create.
Seriously, put that thought to bed now. You're not going to start out by creating space simulators, and if you even try you're going to get yourself extremely frustrated. You can expect to create some very basic stuff like pong when you start out. Even tetris and pac-man is going to take a lot of effort, and you won't graduate to that stuff until you know the basics of the language itself.
Then again, the choice is fully yours. If you want to jump into SFML off the bat let me know. I'll give you specific instructions of how to download/install SFML (that was something I struggled with when I was just starting out) and even give you some basic code to get you started.
You don't "download" .NET framework and Windows Forms. Widnows Forms is part of the .NET framework, and the .NET framework comes integrated in every copy of Visual Studio. It's kinda hard to explain it all since I'm trying to keep it very simple and avoid using lingo.
And about that brain issue... Nope, sorry. I don't even know what half of those words mean.
Learn C get "The C programming language" and a pc unix distro and related software and syscall/library routines manpages, it's the best.
>My recommendation to you is to start programming in the C# language on the .NET framework.
No don't, this is the worst.
>The .NET framework comes with a thingy called Windows Forms which allows you to set up and run a functional window with buttons and everything in mere minutes. Creating stuff in it isn't complicated. You can choose to drag and drop stuff like checkboxes and textboxes onto your design, resize them and set their properties and start programming functions for them simply by double-clicking them.
I already can get very functional windows just by clicking a button, doesn't mean you gain any programming insight.
>>5
I started programming only 2 years ago, but I was trying to get into it for years before that. I just told him what eventually helped me get serious about it. I went through entire tutorial series about the basics of C, the basic of C++ and the basics of Java and every time I finished a series and just stood there saying "okay, now what?"
Having an achievable goal and visual results to your work is very encouraging
I recommend using precision magnets to manipulate the individual bits in your RAM and write programs in raw machine code. It's really hard to get the hang of, but once you master it, people like >>5 can't be snobs to you.
That or you can ignore them and learn in whichever way helps you stay motivated to keep practicing, which usually isn't low level programming now that there are perfectly good alternatives that are much easier to work with.
C# is also what the Unity game engine uses, which might be worth looking into if you're interested in making games.
>>7
You're exaggerating. A lot of shit in C isn't so difficult for someone just beggining, and if they're learning out of interest, they don't have to master bit operations immediately.
>>6
It sure is encouraging, but I like the shell interface, so I don't think of programs that run on a terminal as lowly goals.
And there you can get results fast using C or even asm.