If someone were to start programming what would be the best first programming language to learn? And why?

It depends on what it is you want to make or do. To build a website for example, you should learn HTML and CSS, along with JavaScript and perhaps PHP for interactivity.

He should start by C-language at basic level, then c++ and then other languages, because c-language is the mother of all other languges.

u have many choices:

- if u prefer working with hardwares and embedded systems so start with C language and then C++.

- if u prefer working with windows forms, applications, mobile applications or far from hardwares so use java, c#, vbasic

Scripting Languages are the best one to learn.,

these are independent,

For an instance if you learn C,then later you have to learn c++ later java and so on....

but  PHP/Perl don't require any previous knowledge and are easy to learn . Moreover the result of this language can be seen easily

ex: Facebook is built on  PHP.

Hi

From my real life experience, in general, to start to learn and do something you need to make sure that it will give you the amount of fun and easiness which will be enough for you to keep you going on.

I have decided to learn guitar playing a month ago and most of the people say don't spend too much  money on buying an expensive one and you end up not liking the whole idea. but my intention was absolutely the opposite, I bought a modern high quality guitar with a reasonable price (not expensive and not cheap) so I can feel the fun and the quality of the strings sounds and keep going on.

With that being said, I would say, Microsoft .Net Framework is a good place to start, and Visual Basic is a good language to start with. it is as powerful as any language and it takes you everywhere and is it easy and fun.

Let us know your experience.

Thank you for sharing 

The best thing to learn programming for start, to learn logic & technique, eg: psudocode, which is simple english language. Once his/her logic woild strong, he/she can learn any advnace programming language very quick, some time only need to know the key words of that language to switch from one to other programming language.