best way to learn how to program?

[BigCletus]

I have no previous programming experience. I want to be able to write my own code and learn programming languages. Is it possible to teach myself with out taking classes? Anyone else successful at this? If so, maybe you could point me in the right direction. Thanks.

[jailbreaker]

I suggest getting a book thats usually a good starting point:)

[hlrguy]

Well, without taking any courses will be much harder because they all start off with the basics of good programming skills. My best advice, log onto any local Colledge/University intro Computer courses, see the textbooks required for those courses, head over to their bookstore and buy the 78% off previous version of the textbook (i.e. The 5.0 version for this years course may be $75, but version 4 used is $18 and version 3 is $11). Except for 1.0 to 2.0 revision changes, textbooks change very little, but they change enough for students to feel compelled to buy the latest version.

hlrguy

[hard candy]

Look at this thread,
free computer course (http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115109)

[Parcival]

1) Download Eclipse from eclipse.org (http://www.eclipse.org)

2) Get some Java Documentation (e.g. Sun's Java Documentation (http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/infodocs/) )

3) Write your own e-banking application. Umm, maybe "Hello World" is betetr for a start. :D