At first you should understand that being a programmer is different from knowing a programming language. A programmer is a scholar and inquirer and you can't be a programmer with learning a language and after learning a new language everything will start.
- You should specify your reason for coding
At first you should understand your target. Is it just a job and for earning money? Do you have a new idea and you want to create something new? Do you want to learn science? Or do you want to pass your university courses?
- What kind of programmer you want to be
You must specify your type of programming and your activity and define what kind of program you want to write. Web or operating system? Open source or not? I myself choose the programming system, but it doesn't hurt to learn a web programming language. For example if your reason for coding in the previous step was earning money you should check the daily news to see what type of program has a better job market.
- Choose your language
It's clear you should start from one language and that language (beginning language) is the professional language for you (I chose VB6 at first but little by little I adapted to VB.NET), don't choose a simple language (like Pascal, Assembly and so on) and on the other hand don't choose a very hard one (like Java) because as a result you will be frustrated. Finding the programming language directly refers to your answer to two previous questions, for example if you want to write a web application and also earn more ASP.NET it is recommended but if you need for personal use you should choose PHP, although PHP has a good income but not as much as ASP.NET. If you want to choose depending on operating system then Java and Visual Basic.NET are suggested but you should understand that the languages by OS has their own complexity.
- Start from books
First start from books, with a little research about programming languages that you choose the preceding select a suitable book. You don't need to choose an advanced book or even other languages. Very simple books like a Visual Basic.NET tutorial is able to help you in 24 hours. Of course we know that we can't learn VB.NET in 24 hours but it begins with these books. Do not start with the advanced books, it will probably frustrate you.
- Continue reading Books
With books, Commentators and programs that you need to run your programs on your computer install them on your system, now try to run all the examples and source code on your system and touch them. As Andre Gide says: "Natanayyl reading the soft sand of beach is not enough for me and my legs should fell this softness.” This is for you too, you should feel coding.
- Create your own examples
After running and testing the code and examples in the books create your own examples in the association, test them and try to develop them.
- Do not be proud
If you have worked for several years to learn a language there is still many things to learn. Always try to learn from others and teach other as well as you can (remember when you asked others about your problems?).